General Quarters

Welcome back, Sgt Hook. A staple of my early blog reading has returned to the ‘Net. Good to have you back, CSM.
[cross-posted at Swanky Conservative]

OK folks, if you haven’t clued in yet, it needs to be emphasized:
The media pulled this scripted, staged teleconference nonsense right out of a certain “southern facing” orifice.
I found this on the blog of a participant in the teleconference.
Yesterday, I (bottom right corner in the picture) was chosen to be among a small group of […]

Austin Bay’s blog has some great analysis of the captured Zawahiri letter.
Zawahiri vacillates. At one level he knows Al Qaeda’s losing. But the US may buckle, folks, cut and run like Vietnam. Heck, Boxer, Sheehan, Kennedy, and the DailyKos, give Zawahiri hope.
Useful idiots indeed. More like traitors.
The column says “When Al-Qaida’s zealots blow up […]

Andrew Roberts of the New Criterion writes of how the Royal Navy is at it’s smallest stature since being founded by Henry VIII.
New Labor has defanged this one powerful nation.
Nothing highlighted this so forcibly as the International Naval Review on June 28, when the Queen reviewed 167 ships anchored off Portsmouth. When her grandfather, King […]

Via Lt. Smash, a message from the CNO, Admiral Michael G. Mullen:

Admirals,
I made a day trip to the Gulf Coast this weekend to visit with and thank our Sailors for the extraordinary work they are doing in the recovery and relief effort. I spent time in at the Seabee base in Gulfport, NSA New Orleans […]

This article in the New York Times touches on the reason the US military (not counting the National Guard) was not in the streets on New Orleans early on in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in […]

Contact info from Greyhawk:

http://www.dod.mil/home/features/2005/katrina/index.html - contact info for military families displaced by Katrina (also a great collection of news releases on the military efforts in hurricane relief)
http://www.guardfamily.org/ - info for Guard families impacted by the storm.
http://www.gxonline.com/gxintelnews?id=24147 - info for getting deployed Guard members in touch with their families who might be displaced by the storm […]

BUPERS has a hotline for sailors and their families to call concerning loved ones in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. The number is 1-877-414-5358. If you are unable to get through, as hard as it is, be patient. The area is battered and phone lines may be down in many, many areas.
[from Navy News]

Marines from 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion in Gulfport Mississippi helped rescue people in Biloxi Monday evening. They used a couple of amphibious assault vehicles to maneuver through the area, plucking stranded people from their homes.
Navy Seabees from NMCB’s 1, 7, and 133 are clearing roads so people stranded in Pass […]

The USS Bataan is assisting with recovery efforts in the New Orleans area. The Bataan is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. She is 844 feet long, with a beam of 106 feet. The well deck can hold three LCACs (huge hover crafts). The ship’s living areas can accommodate approximately 3,200 crewmembers and embarked troops. An […]

Katrina’s bearing down on New Orleans and looks to be a disaster in the making. The US Navy has a presence there and the impact of the storm is already being felt. Commander, Naval Reserve Forces has a notice up on the website stating:
*** Hurricane Katrina is forecasted to impact the New Orleans and Slidell […]

Michael Yon’s latest reporting from Mosul is up. Gates of Fire. Once again, he proves to be the best reporter on the ground *anywhere* in Iraq. The Deuce Four and his writing is better than anything Stephen Bochco could cough up for “Over There.”

I found another submarine related blog (Zero Bubble), and in their history related section was a sobering bit from WW2.
It’s hard to figure out what’s worse, an egocentric, self-serving US congressman blabbering to the press about important naval intel or the press for going ahead and printing the words, knowing that it might very well […]

Update: According to ACC President Stephen Kinslow, Basham listed his state of residency in his military record as one other than Texas.
First, this is not a widespread problem applicable to all who have served their country. This is an individual situation involving one person who lived in another state before entering the military […]

Bill Roggio discusses these 7 phases and rates their past success or future likelihood of success.
The 7 phases:
The First Phase Known as “the awakening” — this has already been carried out and was supposed to have lasted from 2000 to 2003, or more precisely from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York […]

Texas Governor Rick Perry is trying to woo Naval Air Station Oceana into relocating to Texas. Both NAS Oceana, in Virginia, and Naval Station Ingleside, in Texas, are slated for closing. Perry is offering a $365 million incentive to the Pentagon to bring the base to Texas.

I read a thought-provoking piece in today’s online Opinion Journal, done by the WSJ.
Daniel Henninger asks the same thing I have been anxiously curious about for almost 4 years now. When WILL we as a nation wake up to the threat that is all around us?
Henninger writes only about general national perceptions and a […]

Roger Simon, commenting that he did not leave the left, it left him, offers up these 2 items outlining ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda (and other terrorists like Carlos The Jackal).
An MP3 (alt link if orig. is being slashdotted - thanks to elgato and SwankyConservative)
A RAM Stream
The date on these? 1999
Can we PLEASE […]

In an editorial titled “The Women of Gitmo”, the New York Times has compared American Female Soldiers working at Camp Gitmo to hookers who walk the streets of New York.
There were several instances when female soldiers rubbed up against prisoners and touched them inappropriately. In April 2003, a soldier did that in a T-shirt after […]

Daniel Pipes authored an enlightening (to say the least) column on how France leads the West in anti-efforts. You can interpret this to cover intel, laws, policing, regulations, etc etc.
I hadn’t really thought of it, but I now think he’s really onto something. Of course, I think France, with the highest […]