General Quarters

I know of a few "libs" in the armed forces.  They are openly critical, bordering on disrespectful, of the President and the GWOT (the usual WMDs / dumbya / etc).  However, they seem to do their jobs, which in the private sector is all that matters.

However - it seems to me that in the Armed Forces, it should be different. 

Should there be intellectual "bents" that, at a minimum, hiner a career / term of service?

The first item that comes to mind, again, *to me*, is that one must be dead set against anything that is counter to national sovereignty.  Example - advocating that the US subject it’s defense actions, once attacked, to UN review. 

To me, this seems natural; if you favor the US going hat-in-hand to the UN, you ought not be tasked with supporting and defending the Const. against foreign and domestic enemies - it’s a conflict of interest, to me.

So, in the hopes of stirring up some commentary, an I insane?  Or onto something? 

**Disclosure**  I’ve never served.  Lord knows I’ve tried, but Uncle Sam REALLY likes retinas with healthy histories.  

I like the idea!

1) Japan is a solid ally.

2) Japan needs the long range, stand-off, stealth, and multi-target engagement it offers where China is concerned.

3) This is a platform that needs to be produced, since the Congress anf the AF dumbed down their numbers fro 700 to just over 100.

Isn'’t THIS convenient. Cina and Iran are sealing a major oilfield development deal.

So, the UNSC is now out of play.

My disdain for diplomacy deepens. Diplomats suck, generals get things settled.

Hat tip to Spook86

The mullahs, the real power in Iran, have said WEAPONS FREE. Is there any sane person who will assert that it is NOT time to defang this menace????

This is Munich 1938, all over again. If we blink, if we back down, then ALOT of people are going to be immolated and poisoned.

Hat tip: the O Club

if any of you are ignorant of the blog called “The Officers’ Club“, that’s your significant loss.

Consider this your introduction:

Freedom from oppression remains the answer to this strategic gambit. If people can be given a choice other than a fascist dictatorship or an 8th century theocracy, they’ll probably take it. That is why OEF and OIF are important, but that also ties into why the world in general and America in particular sees the Islamic world in such a singularity. If we, as a nation, were at all interested in actually solving this problem and working together instead of trying to blame stuff on George Bush or justify a bias, here’s what we would see happen: Every night, on the news, we would see moderate Muslims protesting “not in my name” across the world. We would see Muslim dissidents in oppressed countries elevated to celebrity status in the American media, and vaunted by the international community for their work in reform. We would see proposals about how to solve the problems in the Mid East instead of worrying about the status quo and talking about “stability.”

Now, I am REALLY peeved at all of this Moslem idiocy, and I would, I confess, like to wash the planet’s hands of these nincompoops permanently.

BUT…….. We HAVE to be careful here. I ge tthe feeling we’re teetering on the brink of blanket condemnation in line with Germany of the 30s.

I concur - we cannot reason with alot of these fools. They lack reason, fundamentally, I feel. Therefore, they are committed to their path in life, and will not change outside RADICAL circumstances.

Radical circumstances would HAVE to be a military conflagration and conquest on the scale of Sherman in GA, or Tokyo / Berlin of 1945. I don’t think THAT is feasible these days; it just doesn;t seem possible absent nuclear engagement.

So, what do we do?

I really don’t know. I am open to suggestions.

Maybe this freedom / democracy stuff *is* the answer.

That’s it - I’m done. Screw this nonsense, and the practitioners thereof.

It’s the 21st century, for crying out loud. And you Muslims have FOR CENTURIES had images of your so called prophet produced, most notably by the Persians!

If you want a culture war, so be it. Let it begin.

The Zombietime Mohammed Image Archive

A zip of the images if that link doesn’t work.

10 nicely done, historical images of Mohamet / Mohammed

Note to media over here:

If you’re gonna kiss Islamic ass and shlorp their duck butter, you better stop with all the anti-Christian BS you’ve been pushing on us over the years.

EDIT: —————————-

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Hat tip to Malkin

I’m not.

Not thaI planned to see it. I read a review that was, well, pretty emphatic as to it’s suckitude.

Know what I’m talking about???? If not, here’s Apple’s triler site.

Brazo Zulu to The Officers’ Club.

Firepower Forward is a blog run by a US Army Major in Afghanistan whose tour is wrapping up.

Any blogger who can hammer Arianna Huffington like this is AOK in my book.

Dear Ms. Huffington,

Ms. Huffington, your January 9th column is not only grossly misleading, it is irresponsible. Clearly relying on skewed and second-hand information it draws false conclusions to support your myopic political perspectives.

While it’s true that there are severe problems with Afghanistan’s infrastructure to include severe electrical shortages and a sputtering economy, these are problems that pre-dated the toppling of the Taliban and all these problems are exceptionally less severe now than they were then.

You indicate that Sen. Hagel is courageous his criticism of the president, the courage of which escapes me since it seems to be the national pastime, but he lends nothing to support his claim that Iraq is “sucking the oxygen out of [Afghanistan]”. In the past year that I have been in Afghanistan I have never been short the resources required to accomplish the mission at hand and certainly have never been told, “Sorry, you can’t have that, we need it for Iraq”. Just because the media and hence the American population as a whole may have lost focus on Afghanistan, doesn’t mean the military has and to make people believe that is the case is irresponsible at best.

1) How long till the next suicide attack in Israel?
2) How long till Israel invades (to secure the area, so to say)?
3) How’s the Iranian manure affect all this?

1) With a *known* anti-Israeli organization in power in Palestine, I fully expect that terror attacks will spike, regardless of anything the PA says publicly. Hamas is and always shall be a murderous organization, hell bent on the next Holocaust. So I expect that a great many suckers, I mean “martyrs”, will kill themselves off at militarily and politically important targets like pizzarias, grocery stores, Bar Mitzvahs, and so on.

2) In March, Netanyahu will be the next IPM. And Israel, I think, will be very strong in it’s strikes back at the PA. I expect the WB and GS to be occupied and cut off. I expect a wall to be built as well. Normalcy as we know it will be gone.

3) The Iranian mullahs will howl and rant, and continue with their nuclear ambitions. And this is the dangerous catalyst. How THIS nonsense plays out is key. The IDF cannot take out these facilities (IMO). Only we can. Can we somehow foment internal rebellion in Iran?

*****

I have low confidence in the Hamas run PA. I have thought of Palestine as bomb factory since I saw those thugs celebrating 9/11. It’s time to take all aid we would have given them and give to the Izzies to buy more ammo and body armor (from US firms of course) with.

The Officers’ Club (again) finds a goodie.

In short, the President and SecDef have, since 2002, had the Armed Forces continually refining plans for unwarned strikes against Iran and North Korea in order to defang these cruds.

You can read the WaPo column outlining it here.

Since at least the middle of 2004, U.S. long-range bombers and submarines have been on alert to carry out an attack on weapons of mass destruction targets that could potentially threaten the United States. At Strategic Command (STRATCOM) in Omaha, the global strike plan has been written and refined. The choreography for bomber and cruise missile attacks has been arranged. Actual targets have been selected, and WMD activity is monitored, resulting in constant revisions of the choreography.

In May, I wrote that the plan also includes options to use nuclear weapons. But the attractiveness and feasibility of the new global strike planning is that a disarming blow can theoretically be delivered with conventional weapons alone.

UPDATE: Winds of Change has a LENGTHY bit on this topic, and resons why we HAVE to invade Iran to keep the nuclear genie in the bottle.

It is obvious that Iran’s leaders cannot be deterred from developing nuclear weapons. The U.N. won’t stop them. Diplomatic solutions won’t – the mullahs’ bad faith is obvious. Their diplomacy serves the same purpose as Japan’s with us in late 1941 after their carrier attack fleet had sailed for Pearl Harbor - to distract us from the coming attack. We are at that same point now, only we know the Kido Butai is coming and have no excuse for surprise. Iran’s President has openly stated their real intentions. Iranian diplomacy merely lets the willing deceive themselves.

There isn’t time to overthrow Iran’s mullah regime through subversion before the end of this year, and President Bush’s toleration of factional disputes in our national security apparatus means that we lack the capability to do so, period.

Iran seems to be in a pre-revolutionary state such that its mullah regime will collapse from purely domestic reasons within a few years even if we do nothing, but by then it will have openly had nuclear weapons for several years, possibly used them against Israel and/or been pre-emptively nuked by Israel, and widespread nuclear proliferation will have started with all the horrors that will bring.

Only military force THIS YEAR can prevent this nightmare. Bombing alone won’t do it – it will only postpone things, and Iran’s mullahs won’t just sit there while we’re bombing them. War is a two-way street. They have spent years preparing for this conflict, and will try to stop Persian Gulf oil exports. There will also be an instant massive uprising by Iranian-led Shiite militias in southern Iraq.

I heard a theory last week: that the truce offer was offered in the full knowledge that it will be refused.

The end result being this: under Sharia, OBL now has a moral carte blanche to kill whomever, wherever, however he desires. His offer, now refused, means that there are now no “innocents” here.

I cannot claim to be anything like an expert on Sharia, but this does have a certain sensibility to it. We are after all, talking about a code used to justify the murder of “adultresses” in the name of clan or family honor.

If this in fact some sort of procedural prerequisite, then it may well be that a portion of an American city is slated to be unusable in the future.

Ladies and Gentlemen of our Armed Forces:

I’ve been reading up on this Iranian nonsense, and there’s not a lick of sense in the Iranian Government these days it seems.

Ahmadinejad with nuclear weapons. Hitler in the Rhineland (hat tip to Vodkapundit’s comments).

Sadly, it smells kinda like that. I’m beginning to be genuinely fearful that these fools in Tehran have an explosion in their playbook. And Chamberlain rides again. Paper promises. “Peace in our time”. Utter, total BS.

If the mullahs do indeed have wapon-grade ambitions, I can honestly say I hope that that nation is eradicated. Permanently. They are the root of all this crapola from today, and the sooner that the modern day Berchtesgarten is glassed over the better. The people there are doing nothing to topple this regime internally, despite what I’ve seen of the Iranian blogs online. The germans had to suffer for Hitler, and it looks like the people of Iran, WHO MADE THE MULLAHS KINGS, will likewise have to suffer.

Please, someone cut this nonsense off.

In today’s Dallas Morning News, Robert Kaplan had a column on how the armed forces are overwhelmingly Republican voters, and why this is so.

It’s a fairly blunt look at some reasons as he observed during 2 embeds with our troops.

The problem for the Democrats today is that they are, in the current form, wholly incompatible with the armed forces.

Excerpts:

I spent part of the summer of 2004 in West Africa with a platoon of U.S. Marines. I would guess that, with few exceptions, they voted for President Bush. Some feared that the Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, would end the war in Iraq before they had a chance “to get in on the fight.”

Election night found me in a restaurant-bar in central Alaska frequented by members of an Army
infantry brigade about to be deployed to Iraq. As the results from Florida and Ohio came in – and
for days afterward – the mood was of relief sometimes bordering on euphoria. They, too, would
get to fight. What the Ivy League professoriate is to the Democratic Party, the fighting units of
the U.S. military are to the Republicans.

************ Read the rest of this entry »

Spending all next week in Toronto. Fortunately, it’ll only be +/- a couple of degrees from 0C. This Texan will still be cold though.

From Malkin’s site:

Near the end of the marathon session, a Vietnam veteran, General Wagner, stepped up to the microphone to deliver a message from the mother of an Iraqi war vet who gave his life for his country and for the mission. After reading a scathing letter addressed to Murtha, Wagner talked about his own experience in Vietnam:

I visit Walter Reed [Army Hospital] and talk to the young soldiers with their legs blown off. I know you do, too. I can’t find one in a dozen that don’t believe that they are fighting for a noble cause and are fighting to go back. And I think it’s a disgrace when members of our Congress –just as they did in 1975 when they sold out the south Vietnamese–are selling out our soldiers today in Iraq!

Video

Mudville has it all

On the web, the term “pwned” is really very juvenile, but, damn, that is the one and only word I can think of to describe fully this gem on the Mudville Gazette.

Video from CSPAN here.

Uurah to Malkin.

“Yes sir my name is Mark Seavey and I just want to thank you for coming up here. Until about a month ago I was Sgt Mark Seavey infantry squad leader, I returned from Afghanistan. My question to you, (applause)

“Like yourself I dropped out of college two years ago to volunteer to go to Afghanistan, and I went and I came back. If I didn’t have a herniated disk now I would volunteer to go to Iraq in a second with my troops, three of which have already volunteered to go to Iraq. I keep hearing you say how you talk to the troops and the troops are demoralized, and I really resent that characterization. (applause) The morale of the troops that I talk to is phenomenal, which is why my troops are volunteering to go back, despite the hardships they had to endure in Afghanistan.

“And Congressman Moran, 200 of your constituents just returned from Afghanistan. We never got a letter from you; we never got a visit from you. You didn’t come to our homecoming. The only thing we got from any of our elected officials was one letter from the governor of this state thanking us for our service in Iraq, when we were in Afghanistan. That’s reprehensible. I don’t know who you two are talking to but the morale of the troops is very high.”

Moran - who is one of the few congressmen supporting Charlie Rangel’s call to restore the draft - responded quickly: “That wasn’t in the form of a question, it was in the form of a statement. But, uhh… let’s go over here.” And he took the next question.

PWNED.

In Ramadi, Staff Sergeant Jim Gilliland, who hunted squirrels as kid, then deer, then men (as stated in the article), registered a kill from 1250 meters with the M24 .308 sniper rifle.

The max range on his Leupold scope? 1000 meters. 25% beyond his “maximum” range.

The article is from the Brit paper The Telegraph.

And it was a snap shot, too.

I’m wanting to add in more USMC stuff, since the dogs have always received the short shrift.

While looking for stuff on the Corps’ site, I see a link for General Officer bios. Deceased General Officers. OK.

So, I’m scanning the list, and I see an Aggie on there - Bruno Hochmuth. We at A&M named our Outstanding Military Unit award after him, so there’s instant interest. (Pic of my old unit wining it here - the marroon flag)

Anyhow, allow me to introduce you all to MG Bruno Hochmuth, USMC.

Low Res Image here

Hi Res Image here

Bruno Arthur Hochmuth was born 10 May 1911, in Houston, Texas, and completed high school there in 1930. In June 1935, he was graduated from Texas A&M College, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Education. He was commissioned a Marine second lieutenant in July 1935, upon resigning a U.S. Army Reserve commission.

After completing Basic School at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, he joined the Marine Detachment at the Texas Centennial, Dallas, Texas, in June 1936. In December 1936, he was transferred to the 2d Battalion, 6th Marines in San Diego, California. Departing for Shanghai, China, in August 1937, he served briefly with the 6th Marines, then served two and a half years duty with the 4th Marines. While overseas, he was promoted to first lieutenant in July 1938. Upon his return to the United States, Lieutenant Hochmuth was attached to the 7th Defense Battalion in September 1940. The following February, he embarked with the battalion for American and British Samoa. He was promoted to major in May 1942.
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In January 1960, General Hochmuth reported to Headquarters Marine Corps, where he served as Deputy Chief of Staff (Research and Development). While serving in this capacity, he was promoted to major general in August 1963. That November, he returned to the West Coast and assumed duty as Commanding General, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. For meritorious achievement from November 1963 to February 1967, General Hochmuth was awarded a Gold Star in lieu of a second Navy Commendation Medal.

From 19 March to 14 November 1967, General Hochmuth served as Commanding General, 3d Marine Division, in the Republic of Vietnam. While involved in an inspection tour on 14 November he was killed when the helicopter, in which he was riding, exploded in mid-air and crashed. For service during this period, he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

General Hochmuth was buried with full military honors at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California, on 18 November 1967.

For the unitiated, I have plugged the book Shattered Sword on here a couple of times. I have several reasons:

1) It’s a DAMNED fine book - I’d wager HEAVILY that this will be THE reference volume when people look to see what the IJN did in the battle of Midway. Well, people who can’t read Japanese or afford a ticket to Tokyo.

2) I’ve known one of the authors for 9 years now.

Varifrank reviewed and gushed.

If you follow the book’s link above, you’ll see that there’s nothing but 5 star reviews on Amazon.com.

I got it for Christmas from elgato at SwankyCon. I just finished it off, and I loved it.

Mind you, it’s not the sort of book that you love because it’s uplifting. On the contrary, all it did was remind me of how ill the body politic is right now. Frankly, the woman has been the victim of more than libel, more than character assasination, more than defamation. But she’s rolled with it, and for that, she has my respect.

Anyhow, I love this book. It’s really a simple book, much like a case would be presnted in a court. Very evidenciary in nature. It revolves around several different “sorts” of naughty lefties - celebs, pols, pundits, common folks. Yet they all are alike in that they are positively insane with their visceral hatred of the right.

Frankly, in may ways, it reminds me of Coulter’s “Treason”. While the idea behind Coulter’s book is / was different, the documentation of items is downright lawyerly. The citations portion of both books is THICK, and in the case of UNHINGED, all you who have been preserved for posterity, well, seek help. Also, bear in mind that your juvenile, brutish behavior is now documented for the future. Nice going.

One more thing: For the record, leftists, “gook” is a slur for Koreans, not Philipinas.

One more “One More Thing”: - Malkin is NOT ugly by any means. Whomever of you that said THAT need your heads examined, even moreso.