Ft. Hood: Ignoring the Obvious

Dorothy Rabinowitz dissects the loony political correctness that has scrambled to exonerate Islam following the Ft. Hood massacre. The unwillingness of so many in power to state the obvious bodes ill for the security of our nation.

It has taken Maj. Hasan, and the fantastic efforts to explain away his act of bloody hatred, to bring home how much less capable we are of recognizing the dangers confronting us than we were even before September 11.

If our intelligentsia, both in government and in the media, cannot bring themselves to admit the ongoing threat to our civilization from radical Islam as a coherent movement, then we will not succeed in defending ourselves against it.

The Battle of Teutoburg Forest: A Movie?

Some time ago I wrote about the battle of Teutoburg Forest, a disastrous loss of several Roman legions in Germania in A.D. 9.

Now a Dutch filmmaker is considering making a movie based on the battle. It’s not a done deal yet, but the concept trailer looks pretty good. I’ll have to keep an eye on this one. (You can read more about the project here — but only if you can read Dutch).

Argh! There Be Pirates!

But these are not the lovable Captain Jack Sparrow variety, unfortunately.

Iran’s Navy — Asymmetrical Threat

Robert Kaplan looks beyond a predicted surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, to the Iranian response from their unconventional but highly effective naval forces.

Some of the promoters of a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities have sold the strike as a high-tech, airborne surgical attack. But a look at the naval environment indicates that like the Iraq invasion, what starts surgically could end very messily indeed.

But They Support the Troops

Oh, really?

Message to Obama

This video really puts Obama on the defensive regarding his Iraq policy — but you have to watch the whole two-minute clip to understand why.

China and Kaiser Germany

Robert Haddick sees some startling parallels between the rapid expansion of modern China’s economic and military power, and the unification of the German states under Otto von Bismarck in the late 1800s. Germany’s European neighbors failed to adapt to Germany’s growth, and the result was World War I.

Before World War I, Europe’s great powers clashed over the allegiance of small neighboring states, engaged in a naval arms race, and squabbled over access to overseas raw materials. As a consequence of China’s growth, we are witnessing modern versions of these same conflicts. The question for today’s statesmen is whether they will do a better job adjusting to China’s rise.

Haddick lists several possible flash points that could trigger a confrontation. But the single biggest factor influencing the outcome of this growing unease is the unknown quality of China’s own intentions.

The fateful day may arrive when the United States and China’s neighbors find themselves compelled to explicitly align against China, just as France, Russia, and eventually Great Britain did when they chose to align against Germany. The U.S. government has rejected a confrontational approach to China, with apparent benefit to all. But how long can this policy last? And what will cause U.S. statesmen to change their minds?

That MoveOn.Org Ad

Bill Kristol scratches under the surface to reveal the real message in that anti-McCain MoveOn.org ad:

The MoveOn ad is unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve — and its contempt for those parents who might be proud of sons and daughters who are serving. The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past.

Expect more of the same.

Next Generation Generals

Victor Davis Hanson looks at the impact that the Iraq war is having on the next generation of leadership in the U. S. military.

The annual spring list of Army colonels promoted to brigadier generals will be shortly released. Already, rumors suggest that this year, unlike in the recent past, a number of maverick officers who have distinguished themselves fighting — and usually defeating — insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq will be chosen.

These “maverick” officers have been the key to success in Iraq, although no one could have predicted it at the outset of hostilities.

The terrorist bands that sprung up during the occupation were at first dealt with through conventional tactics and weapons. Only as American and Iraqi losses mounted did a few gifted officers begin to work with the Iraqis, learn the elements of successful counterinsurgency doctrine and slowly win back the hearts and minds of the civilian population.

However, Hanson sees an historical precedent for this changing of the guard among the military’s leaders.

Most wars are rarely fought as they were planned. During the fighting, those who adjust most quickly to the unexpected tend to be successful. And in almost all of America’s past conflicts, our top commanders on the eve of war were not those who finished it.

CoD: Hillary in Bosnia

I’m a big fan of the Call of Duty series of video games, so this one really caught my attention. “I’m going in! Cover me, Chelsea!”

Hillary’s War Experience

The biggest risk with relating your old war stories is overlooking the presence of others who were there — and remember the stories differently.

If Hillary is going to make up this stuff, surely she can come up with something better. Like that time she single-handedly charged a machine gun nest, flinging grenades and spraying the enemy with her automatic weapon, sending the enemy fleeing in panic, and saving her entire platoon.

Yeah, I know, who would believe it? Probably more than you would expect.

Farewell, Nighthawk

The original stealth fighter is being retired.

The F-117 Nighthawk was the world’s first generation stealth aircraft. Its ungainly appearance disguised a remarkable ability to fly almost undetected by radar. The fighter plane saw service in Panama, Iraq, Kosovo, and Yugoslavia.

The plane was developed during the Carter Administration. I still remember the furor over Carter’s revelation of this top secret project during the 1980 presidential election, apparently in an attempt to strengthen his credentials as a strong-on-defense leader.

I saw one of these at an air show at McConnell Air Base here in Wichita a number of years ago. A really remarkable bird.

The F-117 is being replaced by the latest generation stealth fighters, the F-22 and F-35.

Clancy Birthday Bash

I just came across this little montage of video clips from Tom Clancy’s 60th birthday party last year. Naturally, it had a heavy military theme, conducted on the retired battleship U.S.S. New Jersey. The soundtrack from The Great Escape was an especially nice touch. (Good work from the folks at CVP Experience.)

The Satellite Shoot-Down

The Department of Defense has released this video of Wednesday’s shoot-down of that defunct satellite. The satellite was traveling at 17,000 miles per hour, and the missile nailed it. Wow.

Besides the coolness factor, I suspect our government is publicizing this because it wants the bad guys around the world to know what our military is capable of.

Why Americans Trust the Military

Polls consistently show that Americans, by a wide margin, trust the military more than politicians. That infuriates progressives, who see the military as symbolic of all that’s wrong with America. William J. Astore seeks to help progressives understand why Americans are so fond of the military. He points to two reasons.

First, the military is the most diverse institution in American society. Here, people are truly judged by what they can do, not by phony racial, gender, political, or class divides.  That stands in sharp contrast to, say, academia, where diversity is a hollow motto.

Second, the military is the last bastion of male identity. Here, a young man’s masculinity is encouraged and honored, not denigrated or feminized. Even with the increased efforts to open up the services to more women, the military is still first and foremost a fighting machine, dominated by testosterone.

The fact that progressives stand on the wrong side of both those issues explains why they just don’t get it.

The comment by John Kerry in 2006, to the effect that students who can’t make it in college end up “stuck in Iraq,” struck many Americans as grossly unfair precisely because military service still remains a proud first choice for many young Americans.

The Role of the Press in War

Historian Arthur Herman revisits the Tet Offensive in January 1968, and its role in shaping the media coverage of the Vietnam War. Although the Offensive proved to be a crushing military defeat for North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, it ultimately led to the undoing of the U.S. presence in Vietnam, due primarily to the deeply negative reporting that dominated the American media during that period. We are still paying a price for that campaign of misinformation.

Media misreporting of Tet passed into our collective memory. That picture gave antiwar activism an unwarranted credibility that persists today in Congress, and in the media reaction to the war in Iraq. The Tet experience provides a narrative model for those who wish to see all U.S. military successes — such as the Petraeus surge — minimized and glossed over.

Iraq and the Future of Our Military

It’s not getting any headlines, but several years of hard fighting in Iraq is going to shape the leadership of our military for years to come.

The large number of soldiers and marines who have seen combat, or at least been close, comprise a group of military leaders that will be changing the U.S. Army and Marine Force for the next two decades. The large number of combat experienced NCOs and officers creates a different leadership climate, and a different attitude towards combat, and getting ready for it.

The media has run stories in the last year or so about the alarming number of officers and NCOs who are leaving the military, the implication being that this stupid war is driving out our best and brightest. But there could be another explanation:

What the army did not publicize was the large number of officers and NCOs that were encouraged to leave, or get out of their combat job, to make way for people who wanted to fight and were willing to learn how.

That Marine Commercial: The Background Story

Earlier I posted a link to the new Marines ad that is getting a lot of attention. Behind this ad is an interesting story — two stories, actually.

First, the Marine Corps has a web site that describes the production details behind the filming of the commercial. The Silent Drill Platoon that starred in the commercial traveled to fifteen locations throughout the U.S. to perform for the ad. The site captures the highlights of their travels, as they met with veterans, families of fellow Marines, high school students, and participated in other civic events.

Second, if you’ve seen the video, you’ll recall that the last scene shows the drill platoon performing near the Golden Gate Bridge. That scene was actually shot first. But that location was a hastily arranged substitute for the original plan: on California Street in downtown San Fransisco. Unfortunately, city bureaucrats nixed the idea because of “traffic control issues.” (Yeah, right.) The Marines finally had to go to a National Park Service location to find a suitable substitute. The rejection by the city stirred up quite a controversy. Oh, one other detail: This segment was filmed on Sept. 11, 2007.

Semper Fi

This ad for the Marine Corps has been popping up around the blogosphere recently. It will give you goosebumps.

I’ve been reading David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter, a lengthy tome on the Korean War, and just finished his account of the heroic Marine retreat (“attack from a different direction”) at Chosin Reservoir. America’s Finest.

UPDATE: Here’s an earlier Marine ad, just as inspiring. (The link went bad, so I replaced it with another. Same commercial.)

And one more. Do you suppose these commercials have anything to do with headlines like this?

Transformation of the U. S. Military in Iraq

Whatever else one might say about the U.S. experience in Iraq, the good news is that our military has learned some valuable lessons on how to wage asymmetrical warfare. That’s the evaluation of Erik Swabb in the WSJ.

The Iraq war is also dramatically improving the military’s understanding, training and capabilities in irregular warfare. Since this is the preferred method of Islamic extremists, the experience in Iraq is transforming the military into the force required to help win the Long War.

He offers the recent experience of his old Marine unit in Anbar Province as an example:

Soon after occupying its forward outpost, the company met heavy insurgent attacks. But it did not over-react with mass detentions and other alienating tactics. Instead, the Marines took a patient approach to win the support of the population and eject the extremists hiding among them. They partnered with Iraqi police, established a pervasive security presence throughout the city, and worked with local leaders to improve basic services, governance and the economy. Such tactics used to be rare, but are now increasingly the norm, thanks to Gen. David Petraeus’s dogged emphasis on seeing counterinsurgency conducted by all units.

The war in Iraq is not over, and could still be lost — if politicians in Washington force a precipitous pullout. But events of the last year prove that the U.S. military is still the most resilient, most capable fighting force in the world.

UPDATE: Sadly, as CNN’s Tom Foreman notes, this good news is being deliberately downplayed by the politicians in this election year.

On the whole, both parties are shelving the issue because it contains too many uncertainties that could upset their plans for political power.

Most Americans — and all the politicians — have insisted that no matter how we feel about the war, we should support our troops while they are there.

It is hard to imagine how ignoring something for political expedience translates into support.

Here’s an inconvenient truth: Our fellow citizens are risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan to carry out a difficult scheme, which was approved by both Republicans and Democrats; yet our political leaders will not even risk even their careers to talk about it now.

From Battlefield to Beauty Pageant

Now this is a Miss America candidate I could get interested in. Er, in a wholesome way, of course.

Jill Stevens — Miss Utah, aka G.I. Jill — is a member of the Utah National Guard, with one tour of duty in Afghanistan as a combat medic under her belt. Be sure to check out the rest of her Flickr photos, too.

Seeing young people like this really restores my hope for the future of this country.

UPDATE: See a brief bio of Miss Stevens — with more photos — here.

Finally, here is a video of G.I. Jill describing her path to the pageant.

Batwings In War

Maybe. When it comes to Special Forces, you never know what’s really being used and what’s just talk. But this story offers a fascinating glimpse into a new era of special operations insertion into dangerous targets.

I’d love to watch a squad of commandos swooping in wearing these things.

December 7 — We Remember

There are still 4,800 members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. Their average age is 88. And they are dying at the rate of two a day.

But those who remain have stories to tell of that fateful December 7th so many years ago. Here is one of them.

Our hats go off to those men and women — and to all those who sacrifice so much to protect our freedom.

Promoting the Military in the Academy

This is long overdue.

Finally, the Pentagon is using some smart P.R. to get out the message of what the military is accomplishing in Iraq. And they’re getting that message out, of all places, on university campuses.

The “Why We Serve” program . . .

. . . sends recently returned veterans across the country to share their decisions to join the military and their experiences abroad with the public. The program started with presentations to mostly small community groups but branched out this fall to college campuses.

The vets encounter an occasional hostile question and snooty professor complaining about the the “one-sided” nature of the presentations (as if the other side is not represented on today’s campuses??). But overall, the response has been positive. At a recent event at Syracuse University,

The program ended with a lengthy standing ovation from most of the crowd.

“I feel like there is another side that everyone needs to hear,” said Samantha Wilder, a Syracuse freshman from Williamsburg, Va. “There are pictures we never see. There’s a side we never see.”

Thanks to these programs, students are now able to see that other side.

Every Motorcade Should Have One

Six barrels, 4,000 rounds a minute — and a whole lot of scrap brass to sweep up.

Another WWII Aircraft Uncovered

Sixty-five years ago the pilot of a P-38 Lightning ran out of fuel and ditched the fighter plane in the shallow surf off the coast of Wales. The pilot walked away from the plane, and so did the U.S. government. The plane was gradually covered by the shifting sands until it was buried, forgotten to history.

Last summer, a family vacationing on the beach stumbled upon the remains of the plane, re-emerging after its long burial. British military historians are now working to extract the plane and place it in a museum.

A Passing Generation

Paul Tibbets died a few days ago.

Tibbets was the pilot of Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Columnist Bob Greene knew Tibbets, and writes about Tibbets’ life after The Bomb.

It was reported that he claimed never to have lost a night’s sleep after the mission, and some saw this as a show of indifference. It was the opposite. He slept well, he told me, because “we stopped the killing.” He was at peace, he said, because “I know how many people got to live full lives because of what we did.”

The Other Great Escape

One of my favorite WWII movies is The Great Escape, depicting the true story of an elaborate escape of American and British prisoners from a German POW camp. The prisoners dug a long tunnel out of their prison, devising a number of ingenious methods to get rid of the dirt they dug out.

Less well known to history is an almost identical escape of German prisoners from an American POW camp, just outside Phoenix, Arizona. Ronald H. Bailey tells the story of how the German prisoners used many of the same tricks as their Allied counterparts to spring 25 of their number to freedom. Of course, even in December and January, the Arizona desert can be quite unforgiving, so the escapees didn’t get far. Many of them voluntarily turned themselves in after a few days.

In the end, all the escaped prisoners landed back in the camp, sentenced to several weeks on a bread and water diet. They were luckier than the Allied escapees, many of whom were shot.

Finally — A Realistic Iraq War Movie?

John at OPFOR reports that Hollywood is making a movie based on the book No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah, a gripping account of the Marine assault on Fallujah in 2004. Harrison Ford will star as a Marine general.

Can’t wait!

America’s Best

President Bush awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously to Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Navy SEAL who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. Murphy’s exploits were documented in the best selling book Lone Survivor, written by the only member of Murphy’s four-man team to survive the battle in which he was killed.

The fact that America still produces such young men of integrity, courage, and self-sacrifice gives me great hope for the future.