Posse Incitatus

Death from above!

As a former bando with eight years’ marching experience, I can deeply respect the military musicians who remained at attention as a parachutist crashed own on the low brass section.

The great thing about this article is that it lists the damaged instruments before the human toll.

Two tubas were destroyed, said Mike Keating, assistant chief of the post's Fire Department. MacDonald said a trumpet was also damaged.

Harsh.  I know I speak for music-lovers everywhere when I say:  Couldn’t you have landed on the saxophones?

Band member Sgt. Rachel Boggs was knocked unconscious and had a fractured jaw, hospital spokeswoman Lisa Medrano said. Sgt. Andrew Spinazzolla suffered minor neck and head injuries and had a fractured ankle, Medrano said. Staff Sgt. Mark Lucero sustained what Medrano called a minor leg injury.

Damn.  The parachutist wasn’t hurt – apparently because he landed on these guys’ heads.

Anyhow, my sympathies – and admiration – to the Army musicians who got these rather unusual Line of Duty injuries. 

SCOTUS: Make judges targets, too

Looking at the various court rulings over the Guantanamo Bay prisoner, I am coming to the conclusion that there is actually no reason any sensible enemy of the United States would bother to follow the laws of armed conflict.

After all, if you take off your uniform, you become an instant civilian, making it that much harder for your enemy to pick you out of a crowd.

If you are killed, why then your side can immediately say you were an innocent bystander, and accuse the US military of atrocities – claims that will immediately be echoed by “human rights” organizations around the world.

If you are captured, you will be treated to the full protections of the United States Constitution.

At least, that’s what the courts say.

From the “human rights” groups’ perspective, this ruling is a two-fer.

First, it makes it that much harder for nation-states to wage war, thus reinforcing the goals of the peace movement, from whom they are essentially indistinguishable.

Secondly, it allows the courts – which are far more easily manipulated and less democratically accountable – to effectively manage military campaigns.  Instead of military commanders determining rules of engagement, the courts will do so, and often ultimately determine the outcome of those campaigns.

If courts, for example, rule that prisoners have been taken improperly, they can be set free and the soldiers responsible can be punished. 

As I said, it’s a win-win for the peaceniks, at least I’m sure that’s how they see it.

One of the funny things about the left, however, is its inability to foresee how their actions can drive the motives of others.  For example, gun control’s primary effect is to disarm victims, thus making guns more desirable for the criminal class. 

In this instance, the trends will be twofold: on the one hand, the militaries of law-abiding countries will adopt increasingly secretive and extra-judicial means of dealing with enemies.  Since waging war is what they do, indeed what they MUST do, they will avoid court scrutiny by increasing the “gray area” around their operations.  This is not a Democrat or Republican thing (remember, the Clinton Administration came up with rendition).

The secondary effect will be that terrorists will increasingly see the judicial system itself as a viable and relatively cost-effective target.

Consider: to blackmail or otherwise influence a military tribunal, you have to effectively defeat the military that supports it.  Assassinating its members merely brings in replacements.  What is more, they will be held on military bases, which by definition are fairly tough places to get into and move around in.  Infiltrating Guantanamo Bay would be quite the feat.

Civilian courts, however, must be accessible to function within all the Constitutional constraints the judges crave.  They will therefore be in easy to reach urban areas, the judges will be easily identifiable, and blackmail will be that much easier to achieve.

This was in fact what happened in Columbia, where judges, police chiefs and prosecutors were regularly assassinated and kidnapped.  Only taking a more military approach to fighting the rebels allowed the government to restore law and order.

So the unintended effect will be that assassinating the judges – like the Supreme Court Justices who made this ruling – will now serve much more of a purpose than if the military addressed the situation.  I believe that if Al Qaeda and its affiliates in fact figure this out, we will ultimately return to using military tribunals, but not before a lot of well-meaning but unwise people are killed.

A long way from D-Day

I noticed on the ‘net yesterday that the Secretary of Defense has basically decapitated the Air Force: both the Secretary and Chief of Staff were forced to resign.  What is more, their successors are expected to undertake a housecleaning and remove or reprimand other officers.

Heads are rolling.

If one ventures over to the Air Force Times, and particularly to their comment boards, one sees the same thing again and again: that the problems the Air Force has experienced of late would never have happened if General Curtis Lemay were still in charge.

Today is the anniversary of D-Day, and if the massive heroism, stupidity, achievement and waste of that great and terrible day stand in stark contrast to our own, so do the leaders of that era.

They were not politically correct. They were not interested in fair fights.  They were interested in victory.

Lemay essentially took William Tecumseh Sherman’s view of war:  It cannot be civilized or refined.  If one hates war, one must make it so terrible that no one will ever want it again.  I think history has vindicated them both.

From the bomber crews torn to shreds by flak over Germany and Japan to the grunts drowning in the bloody surf of Normandy Beach – and everywhere in between – World War II was waged with a ruthlessness we cannot even fathom today.

The wholesale bombing of Germany and Japan killed hundreds of thousands of civilians – but it also has turned both nations from warlike aggressors into devout pacifists. 

The revisionists are still at it, trying to argue that even the “good war” wasn’t so good, and even though the Nazis and Imperial Japanese were bad, we were no better.  Of course they can say this with the luxury of 60 years of prosperity and a comfy chair in the faculty lounge – not to mention the protection of the US military that they so dislike.

This is a strange time: our military is at war, while the nation as a whole is at peace. Sixty-four years ago there was and understanding that we were not in “Mr. Roosevelt’s War,” we were at war, period.  To the media and many political elites, that is but a distant and increasingly distorted concept.

Sixty years ago today, things were very different.  I think tonight I’ll light up a cigar in memory of “Old Iron Pants” the brave warriors who fought along side him.

Obama sees dead people

It's been said before, but Barak Obama is a freaking gaffe machine.

In my previous post, I noted that I used to write speeches for politicians - and that these included some for Memorial Day.  To some readers, I'm sure this makes me uniquely unqualified to criticize Obama for his tawdry electioneering over the bodies of our fallen warriors.

However, it is worth pointing out that my speeches for Memorial Day were apolitical.  I usually drew upon Gen. John A. Logan's order creating Memorial Day, (the text of this, by the way, hangs on a bronze plaque in the rotunda of Michigan's Capitol) as well as the Gettysburg Address, and other works (like Flanders Fields) that are appropriate to the occasion.  I flatter myself that they captured the solemnity of the moment.  I do know that one legislator had to cut my speech down because he said it was too difficult for him to deliver - he got all choked up.  A rare compliment.

That is what Memorial Day is all about, in my opinion at least.  A day of contemplation and gratitude for the valor and sacrifice of those who have gone on before, not a time to announce the latest giveaway to a focus-grouped constituency.

Thousands of U.S. and allied troops have died fighting against Islamic radicals in Iraq.  Memorial Day is a time to remember their sacrifice and - in the words of a better man - "highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."

You don't honor your war dead by abandoning the object of their sacrifice and then cutting checks to their surviving comrades.  Sean Grimes didn't die for a jobs program, he died for freedom.  It's that simple.

Some bloggers may be willing to excuse this as a minor slip of the tongue, but I cannot.  I wrote these kind of speeches and I simply cannot imagine doing something so crass as to insert a politics into it.

Memorial Day 2008

Believe it or not, in a previous career I used to write political speeches.  This year, I was planning to quote from some of my old Memorial Day ones, since most of the people who delivered them are out of office.  Unfortunately, I've misplaced the archival disk they were one, so maybe this will be a project for next year.

One of the strange features of the war we are in is that it is being waged almost as a sideshow.  People enlist, train deploy and come back and the rhythm of life seems unaffected.  The protests have faded to a few old hippies reliving past glory and a few young idiots who have no understanding of what sacrifice means.

This Memorial Day, I find myself thinking of Captain Sean Grimes.  He died on March 4, 2005.  My post was written back when it seemed that Iraq might be straightened out sooner rather than later, and when it looked like George W. Bush had succeeded in creating a long-term GOP majority.

It has been a tough haul since then, but I stand by what I wrote at the time.  The terrorists are losing, and the flame of hope has been kept burning bright because of those who served and who continue to serve, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world.

Meanwhile, back at the central front

I haven’t posted much on the war in Iraq lately.  I also have posted next to nothing on guns, though I intend to remedy that soon.

Anyhow, my first reaction to the Iraqi offensive in Basra was “excellent!  The government is finally standing up on its own.”  Subsequent events have shown that my confidence was not misplaced.

It goes without saying that the mainstream press put a negative slant on it, of course.  Why violence is escalating!  More people are dying!  I know I shouldn’t be surprised any more by what these people write, but sometimes I still am amazed at how committed they are to American defeat.

What is even more amazing to me is how many politicians seem to share that desire. 

Meanwhile, back on the central front, this showdown has enormous implications for Iraq.  If the Mahdi Army does disband, if Sadr’s power is decisively broken, what then?  Al Qaeda is on the ropes.  Hunted and cornered, it is running out of men and money.  Their last hope was to kick of a sectarian civil war and hope that the growing Iraqi security forces would be torn apart in the aftermath, but it looks like that isn’t happening.

One of the things people forget is how intense and dynamic wars can be.  Iraq had every possibility of disintegrating under the strain – certainly no shortage of experts predicted it.

Yet wars can also be a unifying experience.  The sense of common sacrifice and struggle can bring very diverse groups together.  Germany’s “War of Liberation” against France set the stage for the eventual unification barely a half-century later.  Similarly, the American Civil War and the subsequent World Wars had the effect of building a common culture for the US, forcing people from every walk of life to come together.  It is no exaggeration to say that without Blacks serving in the US Army during the Civil War, they could not have received full citizenship and that without their subsequent service in the World Wars, that citizenship would not have been redeemed.

Iraq’s ordeal has caused great pain and suffering to her people, but it has also created a desire that it be for a purpose; that the lives shattered have some meaning.  For a growing number of Iraqis, that meaning is a unified, powerful and democratic Iraq. 

People are tribal.  They divide themselves into groups.  There is always an “us” and by extension there has to be a “them” as well.  Hitherto, Iraq’s divisions were internal: Kurd vs Arab, Sunni vs Shiite, Ba’ath vs everybody else.

But now a new “us” is forming and it encompasses all Iraqis.  “Them” is coming to mean the Iranians, Syrians and even the Saudis.  As the central government continues to mature and as its military gains strength, these regimes will be increasingly threatened.  I have to say it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Winter Soldier II - this time, it's even less credible

One of the strange things I've long noticed about the left and the anti-war left in particular, is how factually challenged it is.  I don't mean minor details, or sincere points of disagreement, I'm talking about instances of whole-cloth fabrication.

Jesse Macbeth is a fairly well-known example.  People may still recall Ian Micah Wright.  Of course both of these individuals actually exist - unlike "Kodee Kennings" and her imaginary dead dad.

So now they are trying for a new "Winter Soldier" presentation, one that will no doubt be just as accurate as the original.

At first, one could make the Machiavellian case that this dishonesty was about advancing the movement.  At this point, it simply isn't credible.  The anti-war movement has failed.  Yet they keep doubling down on tactics that just don't work.

Setting aside the moral bankruptcy of this, why do they even bother?  They know that every milblogger on the planet is going to fact check the crap out of whatever comes up.  Any active or reserve personnel that describe atrocities (that they failed to report in a timely manner) are going to get hauled in front of JAG faster than Scott Thomas Beauchamp.

The ones that have gotten out, and are thus free of JAG "intimidation," will still be pressed for names, dates and units - and then let the lawsuits for defamation fly.  In short, saying "one time, in Iraq, we shot some kids," isn't going to do the trick, any more than "Ranger Jesse" or "Scott Thomas'" creative writing exercies did.

I think that is a key difference.  The military establishment in 1972 were in a daze, unable to comprehend what was happening to them.  Also, the internet makes fact checking almost instant.  Some scumbag fake veteran who smears an actual person is going to get sued - and then some.

It will be interesting to watch.    

Field Marshal Obama

It is increasingly obvious that Barak Obama’s military knowledge is limited to family games of Risk – and even then I doubt he wins much.

I’ve been trying to figure out what strategy he’s advocating, and as near as I can figure, his grand plan is this:

1. Pull out of Iraq.
2. Deploy more US troops into Afghanistan and take our “tired, worn-out” military into the “hills of Pakistan.”
3. Having thus invaded a nuclear-armed ally in the most inhospitable military terrain on earth, we will then reinvade Iraq because Al Qaeda is there.
4. Oh, and piss on Canada, Mexico and Columbia over free trade.

Someone explain to me how this will win America renewed respect abroad?

Amateurs talk tactics; professionals deal with logistics, and it is clear that in terms of grand strategy, Obama is a rank amateur.  If fighting in Iraq - which lies at the ancient crossroads of civilization - is beyond the reach of the US military, how are we to support fighting against Pakistan over thousands of miles of the most rugged terrain in the world?

Through what ports would our supplies move?  Over what roadways would they pass?  How would we sustain all of those mouths at the end of a daisy-chain supply line that would have to rely on air transport at a time when our the Air Force is using antique planes?

I don't fault the junior Senator from Illinois for his military ignorance; but I do fault whatever staff he has for letting him spout off this nonsense.

What "broken" really looks like

The Posse has commented many times upon the pervasive (and false) notion that the US military is in some way “broken” as a result of ongoing operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The latest contribution to this ignoble (and ignorant) parade of idiocy is the Wall Street Journal’s Mark Helprin, whose rant against talk radio contains this gem:

The Democrats' advantage in 2008 is that the costs of the war in Iraq have been highly disproportionate to its effects, not least in the decline of the American military, when it could have been otherwise.

(Helprin earlier establishes his bona-fides as a fool by arguing that we should have driven into Baghdad in three days, stayed for three weeks and left behind a puppet strong man – perhaps like Musharraf, only less controllable or stable – to clean up the mess.  But I digress.)

The point here is that once again we are seeing the trope that a battle-hardened military is somehow defective because its deployments are longer than usual and its equipment has more wear and tear.

We cannot address the question of how “broken” our military is unless we first establish a bench mark – something to compare it with.

The one that most observers seem to be using is that of a peace-time military.  Now this is not just any peace-time military, it is an idealized one that apparently does not exist and never has.

During the 1990s, we had a peace-time military that was characterized by low morale, lack of mission focus, high turnover, equipment shortages and manpower shortfalls.  Arguably, that military was more “broken” than the one we have now.  Unlike that military, the one we have now has historically high retention rates, is boasting newer and more powerful weapons, and its morale is amazing.  Despite waging wars in two theatres simultaneously, we still have the luxury of rotating troops home – not just for a week or a two of R&R – but for months at a time.  This is without precedent.

The military in the 1980s looks better, but it was also configured for a totally different kind of fighting.  We simply don’t need 60,000 troops in South Korea or an entire Army corps in the Fulda Gap.

When it came down to it, it performed well in the first Gulf War, but was denied total victory by the political leaders who left Saddam in power – a mistake we are still paying for (but one that Helprin and company no doubt still think was the right idea).

Perhaps the best comparison is between our military and the people it is fighting.

Via the hated Instapundit, I found this article to be fascinating.  Of particular import is this link to the terrorist “diary” found during a raid.   Take the time to read through it – it isn’t very long.

One thing that is clear is that this is an organization that is completely disintegrating.  Note what is happening: battalions are deserting en masse with their commanders.  Military units are going from 600 effectives to 20.  Note how much time this commander is spending simply trying to find a working truck.

Now compare this with the American military as chronicled by Michael Yon or Michael Totten.  Not everything is easy forthe American forces there, but the biggest complaints for many units are that the toilets are icky and they are tired of Hot Pockets for dinner.

Replacements?  Adequate.  Supplies?  Ample.  Surrenders?  None.  Defections?  Unthinkable.

In previous wars, some American units took so many casualties that they had to be disbanded or amalgamated into a different organization.  Some divisions lost more men than they started with – and yet they were still able to prevail and maintain their élan.  This is not even close to happening in Iraq or Afghanistan.  To put it another way, the attrition the terrorists are experiencing is simply beyond our imagination.  We cannot conceive of our own units losing half of their men and still remaining anything close to operational.

Now there is a strain of thought that basically holds that the terrorists have a superhuman tolerance for casualties – that they are immune to fear, laugh in the face of death and can leap tall buildings in a single bound.  Basically they are unbeatable.

Events are showing just how false this is, but it is also worth pointing out that other organizations had the same aura of invincibility.  Yet the numbers do not lie.  Even the vaunted SS were reduced to fielding half-trained teenagers using shoddy weaponry by the spring of 1945.  The losses added up.

So it is with the jihadists.  Instead of ruthless, skilled commandos they are duping mental cases into being unwilling bomb carriers.  The enemy is clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It is true that our equipment is wearing out – but this is a function of the age of much of it.  The Air Force’s fleet is the oldest it has ever had – and long overdue for replacement.

It is also a function of heavy use – which also happens when troops actually have the money to train hard and often.  The only way equipment isn’t worn out is when it is sealed in storage – and thus no one is proficient in it.

This diary more than anything else demonstrates what a broken army really looks like – no money, no men, merely growing list of enemies that they have no power to harm.

The US military may be under some strain, but this strain also gives it a potent edge – a reservoir of combat and logistical experience that it will draw upon for years to come.  It would be nice if more commentators – particularly conservatives – looked at the facts and cracked open a history book once in a while before opining on the state of our military.

Home Improvements

It’s been a busy couple of weeks around the ranch, and posting has taken a back seat.  We’ve decided to get a bigger spread, so the bathrooms are getting redone, walls a fresh coat of paint, and a dozen other little projects are finally being dealt with.  Basically, we’re getting the house to where we should have had it years ago – just before we move out.

Anyhow, I see that McCain is now The Man to Beat, (for this week, at least).  I probably should have posted wall-to-wall coverage of Michigan’s primary, but I was a bit busy.

Sometimes I think the pundits overlook that.  The 24-hour news cycle whips right past and speaking as someone who has both been a part of it and an observer, I can say that if you skip a few days, you don’t really feel like you missed anything.  It’s sort of like coming back to school after being out sick for a week.  The New Big Thing is something you don’t know about, but after a day, it’ll have changed again so no harm done.

I have been able to follow a little bit of the New York Times’ latest rehash of the “crazed vet” smear. 

You just know that at some point, at least one of these reporters thought:  “Of course they have mental problems – only a nut job would join the military in the first place.”

I’ve noticed that whenever military service comes up, there are two reactions.  Most people are impressed by it.  Some will say “Thank you for your service,” but the general reaction is something along the lines of “Wow, I hear that’s tough, good for you for doing it.”

The anti-war types (and I am drawing a distinction here between them and liberals, because I know quite a few liberals who deeply respect military service) have a very different response: they are truly horrified by it and usually can’t cover it up.  It’s that visceral.

I’ve remarked before how this anti-military attitude usually bespeaks other issues – that even people who profess themselves virtuous pacifists and opponents of violence and war strive to find a substitute for the courage they so conspicuously lack.  Often this takes the form of simply being rude and “speaking truth to power,” which is a euphemism for insulting people who you know won’t do anything to you.

That is why these folks never “speak truth to power” if it involves criticizing radical Islam – those people will kill you.  After all, real courage should involve no danger whatsoever. 

Anyhow, the good news is that today’s veterans aren’t taking this crap lying down.  They’re asserting their rights – as they should.  The fact is that the anti-military types are in fact cowards – physically and intellectually – and it’s well past time this fact was exploited.

As they come home from Iraq, they are going to assert themselves and the results are going to be interesting to watch.  We'll see just how low they will stoop when their "we support the troops" mantra comes to actually voting for them.