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Additional information on the death of Azzam
As noted here, Coalition forces had a major success in ending the sorry life of the No. 2 official in al-Qaida in Iraq. The current issue of This Week In Iraq ( available here in PDF) has some more information on the raid. From pages 1 and 3, Iraqi Security and Coalition Forces, in a joint operation in Baghdad, killed Abdallah Najim Abdallah Muhammad al-Juwari, otherwise known as Abu Azzam, Abu Selwah, and Wissam, the al Qaida in Iraq (AQIZ) Emir of Baghdad, at approximately 4:50 a.m. Saturday Multiple sources including corroborating information from a close associate of Abu Azzam led Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces to the terrorist safe house where the AQIZ leader was hiding.
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Upon entry to the apartment, security forces found two women and then took fire from two men in an adjacent room. Security forces immediately returned fire, killing one terrorist and wounding another. The women were unharmed in the firefight.
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Recently captured terrorists have said Azzam was as important, if not more so, than Abu Musab al Zarqawi. As Zarqawi continues to run and hide throughout Iraq, Azzam provided both misguided spiritual (false Jihad) and operational direction and controlled all finances for AQIZ. He would allocate monies to the various sub-organizations and personnel within the AQIZ network.
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A recently captured AQIZ member reported that Azzam wanted to meet on numerous occasions with Zarqawi, but the most wanted terrorist would not allow it, most likely due to the risk of Zarqawi’s capture. Allegedly Zarqawi stated that Azzam was too important to risk a meeting, according to the detainee. It's a sign of how effective US and Iraqi intelligence is, and of the threat Coalition forces are able to pose, that these top terrorists feel even getting together for a meeting is too dangerous.
Navy operations in the wake of Rita
The Navy is also involved in post-Rita relief efforts. Navy Exchanges are providing assistance. Navy Exchanges (NEX) began distributing health and comfort items, or comfort kits, Sept. 29, free to the many military members and their families affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
These comfort kits are available to people located within the federally declared disaster areas in and around the Gulf Coast. The hospital ship Comfort arrived in New Orleans. The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) arrived here Sept. 28 at the request of the Department of Health and Human Services and Louisiana government state officials.
The ship, one of the largest trauma facilities in the nation, is preparing to act as an emergency trauma center for New Orleans as its citizens begin to repopulate the Crescent City.
During this mission, Comfort will be under the operational control of Joint Task Force Rita. Interestingly enough, mine warfare ships are supporting recovery efforts. USS Gladiator (MCM 11), USS Avenger (MCM 1) and USS Pioneer (MCM 9) are conducting unit level training and sonar calibration operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
These ships are on standby to conduct survey operations of the Galveston and Houston safety fairways to help determine if they are free of any storm-related debris and to ensure the safety of deep-draft traffic transit.
“We are looking forward to supporting Hurricane Rita recovery efforts,” said Capt. Jonathan Tobias, commodore of Mine Countermeasures Squadron (MCMRON) 3 and tactical commander for mine warfare assets that previously surveyed the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) and safety fairways of south Grand Isle. “We successfully applied our mine warfare skills in support of Joint Task Force Katrina, surveying more than 250 nautical miles of safety fairways and 35 oil platforms. This was a critical tasking in support of putting U.S. oil production and shipping back into play.”
Other mine warfare ships are also preparing to assist in survey operations should they be called, as well as MH-53E helicopters from Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron (HM) 15. Mine warfare assets standing by to support Hurricane Rita recovery efforts are under the tactical command of MCMRON 1, commanded by Capt. Kevin Scott. Here is a photo essay about some Marine Life Oceanarium dolphins rescued after Katrina allowed them to escape. Here is a photo essay about Army medical evacuations. ----- Austin Bay links to an article that tells how useful Navy communications equipment was after Katrina.
A definition of peace
Peace is when there are no more bad days. The last couple of days have been bad days. According to this Washington Post article, three car bombs in Iraq have killed dozens of Iraqi civilians. Other news sources say more than 60 were killed, and dozens injured. In addition, 5 Marines from the II MEF, 2nd Division were killed by a roadside bomb. Ramadi has been a volatile area, and the military has not released a lot of information about what is currently going on in Ramadi. The Marines only said the 5 were killed during ongoing combat operations. Another Marine was killed by small arms fire on the 27th. These are the days that try our souls. We see vicious murderers kill civilians by the dozens, and we see good American soldiers lost because of these killers. Why do so many good soliders have to be lost to these terrorists? And yet, we know the answer. We know evil never exhausts itself. Evil is always hungry, it always seeks to devour. That is why we honor those who volunteer to face it, those who are willing to put themselves in harm's way to vanquish this evil. And so, we mourn our losses, but any day we can stop and appreciate and be eternally grateful for the dedication of our military, that is a good day.
Overwatch
Once again, I'm going to rely on my fellow sentries to send up a warning. JunkYardBlog has a post concerning the erroneous reporting on Katrina, and the somewhat surprising fact the New York Times is aware of it. A great opening paragraph: If your only source for news is the New York Times, you're always the last to know anything unflattering to Democrats or the press. And when the Times finally gets around to telling you about it, there's a good chance that they're leaving quite a bit out. The heart of the post, though, is this: But that sentence I quoted above is as close as the Times gets to delivering any understanding of the actual role the rumors of violence and mayhem played. The rest of the story is devoted to debunking many of those rumors. That's a useful thing to do, if a little late. The rumors should be debunked, and the new ones coming from Nagin and Farrakhan about bombs destroying the levees might deserve a little attention as well. Perhaps the Times will get around to that one sometime next spring.
Additionally, the Times never--not once--addresses the media's role in taking the unverified rumors, reporting them as fact and then using them to smear FEMA and the Bush administration. The Times never examines whether or not the media's own rumor mongering contributed to the loss of a single life (hint: it did). The Times never casts its critical gaze back upon itself or any of the many journalists and pundits who got the story wrong and still get the story wrong. Power Line has a post on cultural illiteracy, and... it sometimes reveals a stunning lack of high school-level knowledge of history, science and literature on the part of Times reporters and editors. Today's Corrections include a mind-blowing example of this genre:
"The About New York column yesterday, about an imagined conversation with God at a Manhattan diner, referred incorrectly to the Bible to which the thickness of the menu was likened. It is the King James Version, not St. James."
I'm speechless. Did these reporters grow up with a Bible around the house? The MAWB Squad has a sobering post about what the media can do with its editorial power: Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy received an e-mail from a Marine in Iraq, which says in part:
"The trick here is to convince the bad guys they have been beat. The idiots at the peace rallies are what’s really hurting since the stated goals of the insurgents is to break down public support for the war in the US."
Take note peace protestors. The troops say you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy trying to kill them. If you really support the troops you will support Victory. Contrast all this with Michael Yon's latest post. Yon first wrote about a girl named Rhma here (under Days 11-16). Rhma has a heart condition, and is in need of serious medical attention. Efforts have been made to bring Rhma to the United States. As Yon writes, there is... a team of good doctors and nurses in New Mexico willing to help Rhma free of charge However, there have been delays in getting Rhma to the United States. As it happened, however, the US Embassy staff in Jordan had actually been quietly but persistently putting a great deal of work into getting Rhma to New Mexico.
The confusion and glitches were caused by “little gremlins” such as Rhma’s parents incorrectly filling out paperwork. Computers are computers; there were delays caused not by the staff, but rather resulting from misunderstandings about what needed to happen and when it needed to happen. These gremlins caused the delays, but the moment the Embassy staff realized these issues resulted from communication gremlins, they rectified them and got Rhma on her way. With the help of Michael Yon, the Deuce Four, and many people working behind the scenes, this girl will get the help she needs. Folks, this is what kind of nation the United States can be. This is the kind of military we have. As Yon says though, Perhaps a local journalist in New Mexico will pick up the thread of this story. Many of us would greatly like to follow Rhma’s journey to better health. Perhaps the media will some day discover the good the United States is doing in Iraq, the millions of lives that have changed for the better because the US military removed a brutal dictator from power. Some day. Until then, I'd be happy if the media simply stopped giving aid and comfort to the enemy. ----- Hugh Hewitt has a great column at The Weekly Standard about the faulty reporting. Betsy Newmark noticed the NY Times story as well. Don Singleton has a roundup on the NY Times story. Mark Tapscott, too, appreciates what the Yon story says about America.
The Screaming Eagles
The 101st Airborne Division is in the process of deploying back to Iraq. (The Division was last there in 2003). Some advance units have been there since August, and larger units are now starting to deploy, with units going in stages till around November or December. The colors were cased in a ceremony described here. The 101st is a storied division. First formed in 1942, the division distinguished itself during WWII. Many people may be familiar with the division from Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers, and the subsequent HBO series. The Division was involved in much of the most important fighting in the European Theater in WWII. It jumped into Normandy, and in this famous photo, Gen. Eisenhower was talking to soldiers in the 101st as the sticks prepared to board the planes for Normandy. After the landings,the division saw heavy fighting at Carentan. In September 1944, the division jumped into Holland as part of Operation Market-Garden, the ill-fated attempt to open a northern route into Germany. The division encountered heavy fighting, but kept their section of the road north to Arnhem open. In December 1944, the division held out at Bastogne in one of the most famous defensive stands of the war. When the Germans asked the Americans to surrender, the commander of the 101st in Bastogne, Gen. McAuliffe, gave his famous reply, "Nuts!" And, elements of the 101st took Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" redoubt. The division also saw action in Vietnam, including the brutal battle of Hamburger Hill. The division took part in Desert Storm, as well. This is a link to a Google satellite map of the 101st Airborne Museum at Ft. Campbell, KY. I visited this museum a couple years ago. The planes in the middle of the image are part of an "open-air" museum showing some of the planes used by the 101st in various campaigns. There is a C-47 Skytrain-Dakota transport plane, which was used in the Normandy jumps, and a Vietnam era helicopter, among the various aircraft. There is also a memorial to the Market-Garden campaign too. The building across the street to the left (west) of the aircraft, with the small red structure in front, is the actual museum. There are artifacts and displays commemorating all the Division's major actions, including the ones I've mentioned. The 101st is scheduled to be in Iraq for a year. That's a long time to be in harm's way, away from home, family, and friends. Let's remember them in our prayers as they begin their journey to Iraq. Some day this museum will commemorate the many brave deeds the Division will perform in the coming year.
There is no heart at the center of the Arab world
Fouad Ajami is a widely known Middle East scholar, one of the best. He was born in Lebanon, and is of Iranian Shiite ancestry. He has a brilliant column today at OpinionJournal.com, where he elucidates the Sunni-Shiite struggle, and how the situation in Iraq today illuminates the fact there is no pan-Arab brotherhood, there are just petty, despotic rulers. Here are some snippets, but read it all. The remarkable thing about the terror in Iraq is the silence with which it is greeted in other Arab lands. Grant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi his due: He has been skilled at exposing the pitilessness on the loose in that fabled Arab street and the moral emptiness of so much of official Arab life. The extremist is never just a man of the fringe: He always works at the outer edges of mainstream life, playing out the hidden yearnings and defects of the dominant culture. Zarqawi is a bigot and a killer, but he did not descend from the sky. He emerged out of the Arab world's sins of omission and commission; in the way he rails against the Shiites (and the Kurds) he expresses that fatal Arab inability to take in "the other." A terrible condition afflicts the Arabs, and Zarqawi puts it on lethal display: an addiction to failure, and a desire to see this American project in Iraq come to a bloody end.
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There is a cliché that distinguishes between cultures of shame and cultures of guilt, and by that crude distinction, it has always been said that the Arab world is a "shame culture." But in truth there is precious little shame in Arab life about the role of the Arabs in the great struggle for and within Iraq. What is one to make of the Damascus-based Union of Arab Writers that has refused to grant membership in its ranks to Iraqi authors? The pretext that Iraqi writers can't be "accredited" because their country is under American occupation is as good an illustration as it gets of the sordid condition of Arab culture. For more than three decades, Iraq's life was sheer and limitless terror, and the Union of Arab Writers never uttered a word. Through these terrible decades, Iraqis suffered alone, and still their poetry and literature adorn Arabic letters. They need no acknowledgment of their pain, or of their genius, from a literary union based in a city in the grip of a deadening autocracy.
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Zarqawi's jihadists have sown ruin in Iraq, but they are strangers to that country, and they have needed the harbor given them in the Sunni triangle and the indulgence of the old Baathists. For the diehards, Iraq is now a "stolen country" delivered into the hands of subject communities unfit to rule. Though a decided minority, the Sunni Arabs have a majoritarian mindset and a conviction that political dominion is their birthright. Instead of encouraging a break with the old Manichaean ideologies, the Arab world beyond Iraq feeds this deep-seated sense of historical entitlement. No one is under any illusions as to what the Sunni Arabs would have done had oil been located in their provinces. They would have disowned both north and south and opted for a smaller world of their own and defended it with the sword. But this was not to be, and their war is the panic of a community that fears that it could be left with a realm of "gravel and sand." (One of Ajami's books is entitled The Dream Palace of the Arabs, and is a clear-minded critique of the intellectual bankruptcy in the Middle East. Here is Daniel Pipes's review of the book.) ----- Austin Bay mentions Ajami's column in the context of a Washington Post article about Zarqawi's role in Iraq.
The skill it takes
In this post, someone left a comment in response to something I said about the skill shown by the troops in the operations conducted in Iraq. The comment read in part: Skill is correct.
I am amazed at how much has been accomplished with what's been given.
Going from zero doctrine and training to all that's being done is truly amazing.
And...given the numbers of troops we have here it is another stunning display of American adaptiveness and ingenuity.
Given this what would YOU have done? Say a Colonel was given X town/area which included all the roads, bridges,hospitals, sewers, schools, police, army, Power grid and distribution infrastructure, etc etc you name it. HE is suddenly responsible for all that in the midst of chaotic warfare with competing factions and his limited numbers of troops and $. All that dealing with all major and minor infrastructure looted or destroyed in invasion. Add trying to train and new police and army force of dubious ability and loyalty.
I would say the US has received an amazing return on its "invasion investment". Yes, what would we have done, if faced with the situation, say, a year ago in northern and western Iraq? If you recall, Mosul was virtually overrun with terrorists last November. They attacked police stations, and the police abandoned their stations to the terrorists. What would you do in that situation? Would you know where to begin? Would you know who to talk to? You're facing a city seething with armed killers. What could you do, and not get yourself killed on the first morning of the first day? What's more, there are cities like this all along the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Where do you begin to get a handle on the situation? This is what I meant when I wrote about the skill shown by our troops. They faced this situation, and today, have achieved stunning successes. Great skill went into building up this kind of momentum. Intelligence, tactics, weapons, strategy. But there is far more skill that went into this success, skill in a dizzying variety of disciplines. For instance, M1 tanks have played a role in this campaign. Can you imagine the skill it took to design and build that tank? The skill needed to design its advanced targeting optics and thermal sights? The tank's armor incorporates depleted uranium. If you were faced with just chunks of uranium ore in the ground, would you know how to retrieve that depleted uranium? Wikipedia describes part of the process: Milled uranium ore -- U3O8, or "yellowcake" -- is dissolved in nitric acid, yielding a solution of uranyl nitrate UO2(NO3)2. Pure uranyl nitrate is obtained by solvent extraction, then treated with ammonia to produce ammonium diuranate (ADU). Reduction with hydrogen gives UO2, which is converted with hydrofluoric acid (HF) to UF4. Oxidation with fluorine finally yields UF6. (Security Watchtower actually has a nice little graphic on this process!) The military in Iraq uses satellite technology, in intelligence gathering and communciations. Do you know what went into developing the technology necessary to make this satellite technology possible? Can you fathom the skills needed to design and build the launch vehicles? Their engines, the necessary metallurgy, the guidance systems, mastering the orbital mechanices? Can you understand the skill needed to build the satellites themselves? To harden them for the orbital environment, to build the communication devices to pass data back and forth to the satellite, to create the complex software controlling the satellite, to design their power sources, to design the attitude control systems? All of this technology mentioned so far involves computers. Do you understand the skill needed to build computers? How about the semiconductor chips that make up the heart of computers? Do you know how to dope silicon to make it a good conductor? How long would it take you to figure out you could use phosporous or gallium? Could you figure out how to make a transistor? Can you figure out how to make it small enough so that you could fit millions of transistor on a single chip? The military would be nothing without its vehicles. We take them for granted, but do you understand what went in to designing and building the combustion engine? How about the fuel it takes to run the vehicles? Would you know to get the oil out of the ground, and refine it into usable fuel? The military rules the skies with its airplanes and helicopters. Do you understand how complex today's military planes and choppers are? Can you grasp the skill needed to build their avionics, their targeting systems? Can you begin to understand the skill needed to build smart bombs with their sensor and control systems? Or the GPS-guided smart bomb? We could certainly go on, couldn't we. But my point is this. Of all the skill and technology mentioned, how much of it was conceived of and developed in the sick societies that produce these murderous terrorists? Answer: virtually NONE OF IT!!! The technology race is over. Period. Large swaths of the Muslim world are so far behind the dust has settled. They are behind because they keep their people in darkness. Women are not educated. Men are taught merely to hate Israel and hate the West. Ever try to build something with just hate? How much better could Muslim societies be if these terrorists used their strength and energy to build up their own societies, instead of destroying? The skills talked about here were developed because people were free to do so. There was an economic system in place that rewarded such efforts. Societies in the West were free, and so knowledge could be disseminated easily. The terrorists want to destroy what our civilization has built up, and it is our military standing on the front line, showing amazing skill in defeating the enemy. Those skills, and those skills that created the technology used by the military and in our everyday life, came about because of a great deal of hard work. It is easier to destroy, than to build, and there will always be the work of holding back the evil that seeks to destroy. Freedom is not free.
Another one bites the dust
According to news sources, U.S. and Iraqi authorities said Tuesday their forces had killed the No. 2 official in the al-Qaida in Iraq. Abdullah Abu Azzam led al-Qaida's operations in Baghdad, planning a brutal wave of suicide bombings in the capital since April, killing hundreds of people, officials said. He also controlled the finances for foreign fighters that flowed into Iraq to join the insurgency.
Abu Azzam, who an Iraqi government spokesman said was an Iraqi, was the top deputy to the group's leader, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Abu Azzam was on a list of Iraq's 29 most-wanted insurgents issued by the U.S. military in February and had a bounty of $50,000 on his head. Here is the CentCom news release. Multiple intelligence sources and corroborating information from a close associate of Abu Azzam led Coalition and Iraqi security forces to the terrorist safe house where the al Qaeda in Iraq leader was hiding. A combined operation was conducted with the intent of capturing the wanted terrorist; however, Abu Azzam fired on the forces, and their return fire killed the al Qaeda in Iraq leader. Note the singing "close associate". According to Captain's Quarters: The intelligence keeps getting better and better, and the noose grows ever tighter. Zarqawi may replace these positions as fast as we capture or kill the incumbents, but each time that happens he has to use people with less skill and experience as replacements. That means more mistakes, less communication with external units, both of which forces the terrorists to simplify strategy and tactics to remain successful on their missions. As I mentioned in this post, another senior terrorist was killed in Haditha on Sept 18. Such operations, which again are related to this larger campaign in the north and west to put pressure on the rat lines following the rivers between Syria and Baghdad, and disrupt terrorist activities ahead of the October constitutional referendum, indicate US and Iraqi intelligence is excellent. As more terrorists are captured, more information is gathered, which leads to other operations, and we are seeing increased momentum. Bill Roggio in his post at The Fourth Rail says this about Abu Azzam: While the report indicates Azzam was the chief financier for al Qaeda in Iraq, he has a longer pedigree than just a moneyman. Azzam was a native Iraqi and a member of Zarqawi’s original terrorist group Jamaat al-Tawhid wa'l-Jihad. He was a ruthless al Qaeda commander in the Anbar province who was directly responsible for murdering government officials in the region during the summer of 2004.
When it was believed Zarqawi was on his deathbed last spring, intelligence officials suspected Azzam was one of several candidates to succeed Zarqawi. Of the nine likely candidates, three have been killed - Suleiman Khalid Darwish, another longtime Zarqawi aide and senior member of al-Tawhid wa'l-Jihad, or captured - Abu Talha, al Qaeda’s commander in Mosul and former leader of Ansar al-Islam. Talha’s network in northern Iraq has been all but dismantled.
Azzam was no small player in jihad in Iraq. He was an experienced and ruthless killer, who as a native Iraqi understood the culture and context of Iraq greater than the foreign jihadis in country. His contacts are likely to be top notch. He will need to be replaced, and his replacement will have less influence and experience than his predecessor. Destroying al Qaeda in Iraq is a laborious process, but one that can be accelerated by taking out vital leaders and middle managers. This Fox News article says US Special Forces were involved. This article, link courtesy of Balanced News Blog, says: A US military official said Azzam was killed in a high-rise block in the Iraqi capital after a tip-off from an Iraqi citizen.
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Another US spokesman said Azzam had been tracked for some time, and his death was a "significant development". Again, indications that intelligence is playing a vital role. Security Watchtower has an impressive roundup of terrorists now enjoying their 72 crystal raisins. Bill Roggio has more on the pounding the terrorist leadership is taking. Belmont Club talks about the "oil spot strategy".
Military operations continue in the wake of Rita
The Texas National Guard and Air National Guard have been nobly serving their home state in the effort to bring relief to those in need after Rita. According to this article: Rodriguez leads a force of about 16,000 Army National Guardsmen and 3,000 Air National Guardsmen. They are working in the affected areas providing search and rescue, humanitarian relief, security, transportation, communications, medical assistance and debris removal.
According to officials at Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office, the National Guard has helped provide 167 water trucks containing nearly 8.5 million half-liter bottles of water, 60 ice trucks, and 17 refrigerated trucks are staging in Beaumont have been or are being dispatched to impacted areas. More than 500,000 gallons of fuel have been delivered to impacted areas since Sept. 22, including more than 25,000 gallons dispensed directly to over 5,000 stranded motorists, and 154 generators have been delivered to communities suffering power losses, with a priority given to hospitals and medical facilities. The Air Force has been doing its part as well: U.S. Air Force search-and-rescue crews have been combing the Gulf Coast since the afternoon of Sept. 24, and the Air Force's auxiliary volunteer force continues to assist in aerial damage assessment, while a variety of other specialized units continue to meet the needs of the areas affected by Hurricane Rita.
Thirteen HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters, equipped with pararescue crews from the 920th Rescue Wing at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., and the 347th Rescue Wing at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., flew 14 search-and-rescue missions, totaling nearly 50 flight hours, Sept. 24. The missions saved five individuals who were stranded, and the crews assisted in six other rescues. These crews will continue to methodically comb the coast today, Air Force officials said.
Members of the all-volunteer Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the Air Force, have flown the majority of aerial damage-assessment missions in recent days, a total of 42 missions to date concerning Hurricane Rita. They've also assisted with search-and-rescue missions. The CAP is staging 12 aircraft and 20 aircrews out of Dallas Mission Base, in Addison, Texas, and from Stinson, Texas, near San Antonio.
An Air Force U-2 surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft from the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., will return to Beale this afternoon after completing a mission to collect imagery of the affected Gulf Coast.
To accomplish these missions, the Air Force flew a total of 19 missions Sept. 24, for a total of 82 missions flown to date in preparation and response to Hurricane Rita, and planned to fly at least 10 additional missions today in the affected Texas and Louisiana coastal areas. The Air Force has also flown numerous evacuation missions: As part of a comprehensive, government-led hurricane-relief effort, the U.S. Air Force evacuated nearly 2,000 Gulf Coast residents from the path of Hurricane Rita Sept. 22.
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Officials estimate that more than 1.5 million people fled the Gulf region because of Hurricane Rita. The Air Force evacuated roughly 700 residents who could not or did not escape. Evacuees were flown to one of eight different secure locations via Air Force C-5, C-17 and C-141 aircraft. Lackland Air Force Base, in San Antonio, is housing the greatest number of evacuees, officials said.
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The Air Force has flown a total of 61 aeromedical evacuation missions Sept. 23 and 74 aero-medical evacuation missions overall in response to Hurricane Rita. An additional nine aeromedical evacuation missions were planned for today, officials said. Here are a couple of photo essays: Lackland Helps Rita EvacueesEllington Field OperationsSee this site for more news on military operations in the wake of the Gulf Coast hurricanes.
The American mind will be closing in 15 minutes
Victor Davis Hanson, himself no stranger to academia, has a killer column at OpinionJournal today, chronicling the dismal creeping stain of political correctness in American universities. He starts by recounting Harvard President Lawrence Summers and his misadventure, when he unwittingly tripped and fell and grabbed the live wire of feminist politics with both hands. At Harvard University, beleaguered President Lawrence Summers challenged notions of "diversity" and paid a steep price. He suggested--off the record, at a conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research--that factors other than institutional prejudice and cultural pressure might help explain the relative dearth of women faculty in the hard sciences at Harvard and other elite universities. If the intent of that mildly provocative, off-the-cuff exegesis was to jumpstart debate among serious thinkers, it proved a big mistake. Within seconds, one tough-minded feminist was reduced to bouts of nausea and swooning, and within hours many were calling for Mr. Summers to apologize, if not resign. But Hanson tells us of three other university presidents who have been in the news. The first is Denice Denton of UC-Santa Cruz. (Hanson earned his B.A at UC-Santa Cruz) One of President Summers's chief critics, Denice Denton, the newly appointed chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz, heralded Mr. Summers's public humiliation as a "teachable moment." As one president to another, she objected: "Here was this economist lecturing pompously [to] this room full of the country's most accomplished scholars on women's issues in science and engineering, and he kept saying things we had refuted in the first half of the day."
But Chancellor Denton has her own shortcomings. They do not revolve around mere impromptu remarks, nor have they been trailed by public apologies and task forces. Yet in its own way her controversy goes to the heart of the same contemporary race-and-gender credo that governs the university, enjoying exemption from normal scrutiny and simple logic.
Before her arrival, Ms. Denton arranged the creation of a special billet--ad hoc, unannounced and closed to all applicants but one: Ms. Denton's live-in girlfriend of seven years, Gretchen Kalonji. Most recognize this as the sort of personal accommodation--old-boy networking, really--that Ms. Denton presumably wishes to replace with affirmative action, thus ending backroom deals and crass nepotism. The second is University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman. She recently resigned, ostensibly following athletic scandals, but more likely as a result of the uproar over Ward Churchill. We remember him now as the strange professor who compared the 3,000 murdered in the Twin Towers and Pentagon to "Little Eichmanns," supposed cogs in the military-industrial wheel who deserved their fate. The public grudgingly accepted that Mr. Churchill's wartime praise for the 9/11 murderers ("combat teams" rightfully avenging America's murder of "500,000 Iraqi children") is protected free speech. But it could not quite fathom why Mr. Churchill was not summarily dismissed for other sins.
President Hoffman did her best to deflect attention from the Churchill mess by a now-familiar victimization gambit. The scandal was not Mr. Churchill and his remarks but the reaction to them: academic freedom was under assault from--what else?--"a New McCarthyism." At the barricades, as it were, she boasted to her faculty senate that "I was a tiger about speech. There was no way I was going to touch speech." She went on, "We are in dangerous times. I'm very concerned. . . . It's looking a lot like [former CU president] George Norlin being asked to fire all the Catholics and Jews or the McCarthy era. We need to make sure we don't let ourselves go down that path, no matter how much shouting there is from the outside. There are forces that would push us down that path if we let them."
Meanwhile, the media-savvy Mr. Churchill--replete with long gray locks, beaded headband, shades, buckskin and the Native American name Keezjunnahbeh (which means "kind-hearted man"; Ward Churchill is his "colonial" name)--was determined to capitalize on his windfall fame. Indeed, he was undoubtedly grateful, after years of toiling in painful obscurity, that the media had at long last noticed his outrageous behavior. He grasped that he was already eligible for lucrative retirement benefits, which now could be enhanced by a generous golden parachute from the University of Colorado, eager to avoid millions of dollars in lawsuits and more bad press. The third is Robert J. Birgeneau, the new chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. Upon arriving in the Bay Area, he quickly vowed to solve the problems he had found. Surprisingly, these had nothing to do with a decline in academic standards, deterioration in the quality of Berkeley's key departments, or a state funding crisis. Instead, the chancellor complained that Berkeley has fewer Native American, Hispanic, and African-American students enrolled than it should--the campus was only 3% black, 9.5% Hispanic, and 0.4% Native American, in contrast with about 45% Asian-American and about 33% white. (The California population comprises 6.5% blacks, 33% Hispanics, 0.92% Native Americans, 11% Asian-Americans, and 45% whites.) Mr. Birgeneau is obsessed with racial diversity, as determined by percentages and quotas. But as we shall see, the numbers, under closer examination, may make him regret pandering to the diversity industry.
Chancellor Birgeneau blames the apparent statistical injustices on Proposition 209, the 1996 California ballot initiative that forbids the use of racial criteria in state hiring; it passed with the support of 55% of the electorate. In his view, however, democracy ought to defer to elite opinion; thus, to this Canadian academic the state's voters were obviously misguided: "I personally don't believe that most of the people who voted for 209 intended this consequence."
One can learn a lot about the pathologies of the contemporary university from what its presidents say--and don't say. A close look at the data suggests a different picture from the one implied by Mr. Birgeneau's gratuitous lamentations about the lack of diversity. Whites, for instance, are underenrolled at Berkeley: They amount to around 35% of undergraduates versus 45% of the state's population. Given this fact, why doesn't the Chancellor complain about the shortage of whites on campus? There is more, but Hanson reveals his point by asking a question: In the end, why should we care about a few high-flying administrators who feel that diversity is the engine that runs the university? Because the U.S. is struggling in an increasingly competitive world in which Europe, China, Japan and India vie for global talent and national advantage through merit-based higher education. They don't care about the racial make-up of the teams that create breakthrough gene therapies or software programs, but only whether such innovations are valuable and superior to the competition.
As our own industrial, agricultural and manufacturing sectors decline, and as we suffer from increasing national debt, trade deficits, energy dilemmas and weak currency, Americans have maintained relative parity largely through information-based technology and superior research--all predicated on a superb system of higher education. At some point, Mr. Summers, Ms. Denton, Ms. Hoffman and Mr. Birgeneau might have wondered what precisely was the system that produced their lavish salaries and great campuses--and what protocols of merit, transparency, intellectual honesty and scholarly rigor were necessary to maintain them.
The signs of erosion on our campuses are undeniable, whether we examine declining test scores, spiraling costs, or college graduates' ignorance of basic facts and ideas. In response, our academic leadership is not talking about a more competitive curriculum, higher standards of academic accomplishment, or the critical need freely to debate important issues. Instead, it remains obsessed with a racial, ideological, and sexual spoils system called "diversity." Even as the airline industry was deregulated in the 1970s, and Wall Street now has come under long-overdue scrutiny, it is time for Americans, if we are to ensure our privileged future, to re-examine our era's politicized university. Why can't Johnny read, or design semiconductor chips, or program a computer? If Johnny is a white male, maybe it's because he was hopelessly confused his first day of school as a snot-nosed freshman, wondering why he was being accused of oppressing women and p'urt near every ethnic group on the planet, when all he came to do was study math and science. ----- Others commenting on Hanson's column are acta online, Hampton Stephens, The Pajamahadin, Transterrestial Musings, Hammerswing75
We'll miss him...this much
Don Adams, who will forever be known as Agent 86, passed away at the age of 82. Get Smart was one of my most favorite shows of my youth. Who will forget the Cone of Silence, the shoe phone, KAOS, Agent 99, Agent 13 crammed into everything from a vending machine to a mailbox, the old triangulation device in the french bread trick, etc... The Corner had a link to something I didn't know. Adams was in the Marines, and was on Guadalcanal.
Pink Freud
This goofball story out of the University of Iowa, my alma mater (one of them, anyway)... A University of Iowa law professor said the school is promoting homophobia and will challenge whether Iowa is violating NCAA rules by painting a visitors' locker room pink.
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The color was introduced decades ago by former Hawkeye coach Hayden Fry to soften opponents. But recent stadium renovations added more pink items to the locker room, including lockers, sinks and urinals. Hayden Fry (the thinly disguised inspiration for the Craig T. Nelson TV series "Coach") was a psychology major, and had the visiting locker room painted pink, the theory being the girlie color would turn testosterone-saturated visiting football teams into powder puff girls. Perhaps this year's team should find a way to sneak into the home team's locker room and paint it pink when Iowa is on the road. Iowa has won its two home games this season, but has been blown out in its two road games, getting stomped by Iowa State and Ohio State. ----- JunkYardBlog is amused by the story.
Babel Fish at it again
A friend of mine, who works at packaging internet content, such as worship services, in XML for rendering on a worship planning web site and a confirmation curriculum web site, emailed a couple of instances where certain things didn't quite get translated right. A miracle of speaking in tongues might be in order. The developer I work with just told me he saw a translation from Russian into English of what should have been "the spirit and the flesh," but was rendered as "vodka and meat."
The subject came up when I mentioned that the foot washing rite in Spanish is "Lavatorio de los Pies," which, obviously, Babel Fish calls "Lavatory of the Feet."
I wish they would gum up their mouths
President Bush was criticized widely on the Left for his response, or perceived lack thereof, to Hurricane Katrina. So, as Hurricane Rita approached the Texas-Lousiana coast, Bush went to Colorado Springs and Texas to closely monitor events. It shouldn't surprise you that for some on the Left, there's nothing Bush could do to satisfy them. On his radio program last Friday, Hugh Hewitt chatted with the Beltway Boys, that Dynamic Duo of Demosthenesian Dissuasion, about this point. Hugh said: HH: Okay. Let me ask you, the president of course, is at Colorado Springs. He didn't want to go into Texas to divert resources. Is he overplaying his hand here? Now he's being accused by Gregory of the White House Press Corps of overplaying, after underplaying, and Gregory was upset about that three weeks ago. As another example, take this blog. The self-described Liberal Phoenix says: He’s going to “look” at it? He’s going to “show support for the first responders”? That’s the lesson he learned form Katrina? He needs to “look” more? Please tell me there’s something more than that.
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Going down there now is totally inappropriate and can only serve as a distraction to the first responders that he is going to “thank”. He has a job to do, and I only pray that his job is something more important than monitoring, looking, or thanking. Blogs for Bush has this question asked by a reporter: After President Bush briefed reporters on his intention to visit the area affected by Hurricane Rita as soon as possible, one reporter yelled, "Sir, what good can you do going down to the hurricane zone? Might you get in the way?" I'm not sure what Bush could've done to satisfy these people. Perhaps they wanted Bush to lash himself to a tree on the Texas coast like Odysseus, take the brunt of the hurricane right in the teeth, and shout "Don't gum up my ears! I want to hear the siren call of the hurricane! Let it sing to me!"
Overwatch
Power Line takes its own try at standing on overwatch. They take a look at media coverage of Katrina, and wonder why so many things the media reported turned out to be wrong. * How did so many false rumors come to be reported as fact?
* Do news outlets have any procedures in place to avoid this kind of mis-reporting? If so, why did their procedures fail so miserably?
* To what extent were the false rumors honest mistakes, and to what extent were they deliberate fabrications?
* To the extent that the false reports were deliberate, did the press pass them on through sheer negligence, or did some reporters participate in deliberate fabrication?
* Did the widespread breakdown in accurate reporting stem only from a failure to follow proper journalistic standards, or did it also reflect a deliberate effort to damage the Bush administration by passing on unconfirmed rumors as fact?
* In deciding what stories to report, did the news media consider the likelihood that passing on false rumors would damage the rescue effort?
Dis-Strib-Ute
The Sunday edition of the Star Tribune had one of those articles that gives the Strib its cellar-dweller reputation among conservatives. It was pure agenda-driven agitprop in favor of homosexual marriage. The article, entitled Hand in Hand, offered nothing more than the story of two retired men who had been a support to each other for years. Every Sunday morning, as sunlight seeps through the cream and blue church windows, Ken Dedina and Bobby Paula walk from their second-row pew, hand in hand, to take communion together.
The two retired men scurry downstairs a few minutes later, as the singing and services end at All God's Children Metropolitan Community Church in south Minneapolis.
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For others in the Twin Cities gay community, Dedina and Paula provide a reason to believe in monogamy and the power of long-term relationships. They've been together 48 years, helping each other through unemployment, diabetes, depression and even a quintuple bypass surgery.
"For a gay couple to stay together since they met in 1957 is pretty unusual, particularly for men of their generation -- they're gems of God," said the Rev. Paul Eknes-Tucker, pastor at All God's Children, where the motto on the church program tells worshippers to "just come as you are." There's the usual tale of oppression: The bar they'd visit in the basement of a brownstone in Manhattan required a secret knock and a peephole check before you'd be allowed in. If someone suspicious was at the door, the light over the tiny dance floor would switch on and everyone would split up and sit at tables.
"Homosexuality was an arrestable offense," Dedina said. "The cops could walk right in and do whatever they wanted." The real reason for this article becomes clear towards the end of the piece: Having support in an increasingly accepting community has helped Dedina and Paula maintain their relationship for nearly 50 years. But there have been times when they wish the union could be legally on par with heterosexual marriages. In this metro area of nearly 3 mllion people, how many stories do you think there are of people supporting each other through thick and thin, through illness and hard times? Out of all those stories, how did the Strib settle on a gay couple who wished they could be legally married? I'll tell you how. The Strib didn't just happen to come across this story and think gee, our readers might enjoy this heartwarming story. No, the far-Left editorial bent of the Star Tribune does not allow passivity. The paper continually pushes its agenda in front of its readers. If the activist Left can push things far enough so that gay marriage is instituted by judicial fiat, they would be thrilled. No need to go through the messy process of persuading voters. But if the activist Left can keep pushing things till voters just give in and say oh what's the harm, then that works too. ----- Rambix noticed the same article.
Dispatch from the Front VI
In the last dispatch we looked at the various interests at work in Iraq. This time we'll continue with the theme that it is important the US not cut and run at this point. Howdy. Been meaning to update around birthday time and that didn't happen but time has gotten away from me as usual. Of course, anyone who knows me could hint there is a bit of procrastination involved and they would be correct. But truth be told we have been busy. Nothing like celebrating a birthday with a combat mission in the middle of Mess-o-potamia. Ha. So, buckle in and hang on for some more mindbending freeassociation rambling.
It has and probably will stay at about an average rate of violence for some time, most likely years. The bad guys, whoever they may be in their various factions, are well funded, organized, trained, equiped, recruited and replaced at a fairly constant rate. They arent in their "last throes", at least yet.
So far, they have too much too lose to give in and their incentives to give in are not present despite myriad efforts to get everyone what they want. Too many intractable differences to be settled in a short time and all neat and tidy.
It took years for the early US constitution to be formed by historical events and they were in relative peace. Here, under the given pressures with the factions as diametrically opposed as they are, it is unreasonable to expect them all to just sit down as friends as write up a system of goverance.
To wit:
We the people of the United States,
in order to form a more perfect union,
establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
This preamble to the US constitution is quite remarkable in its essence and simplicity, but in the end it really says it all, all it needs to. It embodies what we all want and should have. It's probably what most Iraqis would want. To get the factions of Iraq to sit in peace and agree to the above principles is nice in theory and very difficult in practice outside the safety of the green zone in Baghdad.
That's what a good government is for, stability. In its absence, you get chaos and anarchy (see hurricane katrina hmm.) or say, Iraq.
The genius and miracle of the modern era has enabled an era of Tranquility to exist in unprecedented degrees not previously possible. America's overall GRAND PLAN is to extend peace and prosperity throughout the globe to those areas of instability.
Don't take what you all enjoy for granted. Most Americans just have no idea there is a greater world beyond the good life they enjoy. It was achieved through hard effort and sacrifice. And it is maintained only by the grace of God and human endeavor for without it all that we enjoy can be taken away in a short moment of chaos or disaster or neglect. I also mention the national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner.
Key wrote the first paragraph of the poem (there are 4, I am amazed at how many americans dont know this but then, publice education and society is not what it used to be, unfortunate in some ways. just once, at a baseball game i would like to see the whole song sung, maybe at this years world series?)
You see, as he watched Fort McHenry get blasted by the Brits throughout the night fight, there was doubt about whether or not the Americans could hold out against the attack. The point of the poem was Key himself did not know how it all would end. There was smoke, confusion, explosions, but he kept seeing the flag flying. And it gave him hope. Eventually the Brits gave up and We Won. But it took courage and perserverance.
I could go on and on but I have written before about how short sighted and mistaken it would be for our current national foreign policy and war strategy to be predicated upon a timeline of months to a few short years and a finite amount of war casualties, i.e. America's modern war motto: We only fight 2 years and 3 months and 4 days and 3 hours and 5 minutes and then we all go home or after 3483 kia whichever comes first. Bad idea Yes, there is a time and a place for everything. Sometimes, you have to cut your losses and realize your goals will not be achieved. Us involvement in the vietnam war is a prime example. After years of spinning tires when it became clear the national political and military leadership did not intend to win and conclude the war after thousands of casualities the us backed out.
This is certainly not the time for it now here in Iraq. Overall the strategy is going ok to fair. There are huge implications for premature exit. All have bad ramifications for America. Politically, militarily, diplomatically, economically and from national security perspective, it would be a disaster.
I am not going to debate or explain the whys and wherefores of why we are here now. It's moot at this point and even those political leaders opposed to the invasion (ie france, germany, russia, china etc) realized this and now have to deal with the reality on the ground as it is today. But, I keep emphasizing, those who are in the military now all volunteered for this. Good or bad.
I don't like it anymore than anyone else. There is a big mess here, no doubt. But, it was my choice. Of course an American has a right in the say of how and when we are deployed. But once committed it is best to see it through to its successful conclusion.
Unless we reinvade all over again and rule all these fighting idiots ourselves (which would take a massive army to subdue them all but we all know that is not going to happen) if we just turned tail and run now, what did all those troops get killed and wounded for?! That would not due justice to their effort.
Yes, it's extremely unfortunate. but that's war. It's what happens. I don't want casualties. I wouldn't like it to happen to me or anyone i personally know. But that's the risks. At times, I would just like to leave. Go home to peace and quiet. See my wife and home and family. What could be better than that? Freedom. Peace. Anything and anywhere but here.
Sometimes, I can almost taste it, like a steak you can smell grilling. You can almost savor it even though it is far from your mouth. I look out across a village to a scene out of the bible or some story in arabian nights and it seems so tranquil and serene. But I know, for me and my kind, many of these areas merely holds death waiting for us if we make a mistake or get unlucky.
Well, I can sometimes almost taste the freedom. I crave it. Just the taste and I will be satisfied. How is it that sometimes something is cherished more once its gone? Once a taste of freedom, and you will hunger for it forever. Your thirst for it cannot be quenched. Well, you dont have to have something taken away to hold it near and dear. You can appreciate you have without having it taken away first. But it sure is a lot sweeter once regained.
For someone like Senator McCain and others similar who endured years of torture in prison of war, I can near not imagine what resolve it took for him to endure and triumph. I had enough of the few days of prison training we did. Let me tell you, after that, shall we say, unpleasant experience, being set free to the sound and sight of the American flag was incomparable, near rapturous joy upon release from pure misery. And the knowledge of freedom. pure freedom. It was sweeter than honey.
And don't the good people of Iraq that we fought for and are now dieing for deserve a chance at that? So maybe, one day, we can all live in peace and prosperity like we do now with our once former bitter enemies? Wouldn't that be nice to visit the middle east and have it known for something other than war and bombs and killing?
Well, I say, after stumbles, we have a good plan. Let Iraq stand up and take over. But we have to create and maintain the conditions for which that will be possible. That's simple fact. If we leave too early these iraqis will collapse into a huge civil war. It's going to take more time and resources for them to create stability. I knew that as soon as the rumble to war began it would take ALOT of effort, much more than was being said at the time.
(and it was a bit disengenuous to suggest otherwise by our leaders -but would the plan have sold if we were merely promised more blood, sweat, toil and tears? Oh yeah, by the way, years of analysis indicates ancient rivalries will surface and a huge struggle for power will erupt and it will take near a half trillion dollars or more (we are near a quarter trillion right now) and years of settling the squables before it all comes out in the wash. So, are you with me America? Sound of crickets. I wish for once, though, a politician would just say it straight)
Yes! It's frustrating! I know, I am here living and dealing with it every day. Working with these iraqis is like herding cats or a three ring circus of clowns. But an American trait should be sticking it out through thick and thin. All those who are married know that. Who wants only a fair weather friend? In the next dispatch, for a little change of pace, we'll look at the type of rounds (bullets) used widely in the US military. Dispatch from the Front IDispatch from the Front IIDispatch from the Front IIIDispatch from the Front IVDispatch from the Front V
Creating the Iraqi Army
In this post, Bill Roggio mentioned Operation Sayaid, which is now getting underway. Part of this plan calls for the Iraqi 7th Army Division to provide permanent security in the region. This is the only way the US will be able to extricate itself from Iraq with hopes of leaving behind a nation able to stand on its own, if the Iraqi forces are able to perform security functions by themselves. This Iraqi 7th Division trained under the II Marine Expeditionary Force. This photo shows some of the Division in training. This photo is from CentCom, and the caption read: Iraqi army recruits assigned to 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 7th Division, participate in a practical application exercise on entering and exiting a convoy during hostile fire at the Eastern Fallujah Iraqi Camp, located on Camp Fallujah, on July 26, 2005. I emailed the II M.E.F. to ask about how this 7th Division was formed, and if the makeup of the division might have an impact on its security mission, given it will be operating largely in the Anbar region. This area is largely Sunni, and in general I wonder if significant numbers of Shiite troops operating in Sunni areas might pose difficulties. Iraq will see success only if they can get past these sectarian differences, at this enough to see the Iraqi Army as a national army. A Major with the Public Affairs Office of Multi-National Force - West emailed me back. This was his reply: Thank you for your interest in Iraqi Security Forces.
The Iraqi Army, as you may know, is a national (and secular) army, designed much like our own services.
Soldiers are recruited and assigned to units and deployed to areas that they are needed. Recruiting continues and the ISF is striving to ensure that the population of Iraq is well and equally represented in their armed forces.
As I mentioned earlier, all the units are secular and are designed to reflect the make up of the population: Shiite, Sunni and Kurd. Therefore there will be more Shiite than Sunnis and Kurds simply because the country is predominantly Shiite. The 7th Div will be located and operating in Al Anbar province and is a mixed unit.
After speaking with our liaison to the ISF, we are seeing that the units in our area of operation are not only performing, but they are having success. Just as the Marines send forces anywhere and we adjust to work with the local population and gain their trust, the Iraqi Army has done and continues to focus on doing that.
For instance, a commander of one of the units is a Sunni, he will assume command of units that are a widely mixed. Conversely, another commander is a Kurd who has an XO that is Sunni and a chief of staff is a Shiite.
Finally, as a commander speaking to my new Marines in the past, I've explained our Marine Corps, (and now the Iraqi military) like this:
Units are like orchestras. You need many of people with all kinds of backgrounds. Some are violins, some are tubas and we even have some triangles and bells, but the resulting sound is one that can move people and inspire greatness. In our case, our concert hall is anywhere we deploy and the ISF is expected to be employed in the same manner.
Historically, you can even look at the civil war or many other wars where units came from different geographic locations with different backgrounds in the US and were able to mix and achieve success. This model is intended to help establish national unity as well.
From my own experience here now and from 2 years ago, it is common to see people from all backgrounds living in the same neighborhoods. One house will fly a Sunni flag and their neighbor will fly a Shiite flag. Despite what may be reported, I find Iraq to be a religiously tolerant nation.
Hope this helps explain your questions. Thanks for your kind wishes as well! The Iraqi Army has seen encouraging success lately, for instance in Tal Afar. It is encouragin if mixed units can work together and perform the tasks necessary to rebuild Iraq, and provide security for their fellow countrymen.
Telling the whole story
In the previous post about the military's significant involvement in hurricane relief efforts, John posted a terrific comment with some of Victor Davis Hanson's thoughts on what the media choose to report on during these storms. For all the media's efforts to turn the natural disaster of New Orleans into either a racist nightmare, a death knell for one or the other political parties or an indictment of American culture at large, it was none of that at all. What we did endure instead were slick but poorly educated journalists, worried not about truth but about preempting their rivals with an ever more hysterical story, all in a fuzzy context of political correctness about race, the environment and the war.
Let ghoulish CNN file suit against the government to film all the bloated corpses it can find. Let a pontificating PBS "NewsHour" conduct more televised roundtables with grim-faced elites searching out purported national racism. But few any longer trust a frenzied media whose reporters and commentators continually prove as incompetent as they are disingenuous.
Was it too much to ask reporters to look to history to judge this recovery against other past disasters here and abroad? Could they have strived for accuracy instead of ratings — and at least made sure that the images from their cameras did not refute their own predetermined scripts? I linked to that page listing numerous military operations related to Rita and Katrina because it struck me just how little I'd heard about these operations in the media. I do often question the media's reliability, but I should say the I think print media is usually light years better than the broadcast and cable tv news networks. The TV media are usually after the shocking emotion-laden images, and they could care less about telling the complete story. I watched some of the TV coverage late last night as the hurricane approached the coast, and no matter what channel I was on, it mostly consisted of the typical shot of some poor correspondent standing in the wind and rain commenting about how bad the wind and rain was. For 45 minutes that's all I heard. At one point, the camera panned over to Shepherd Smith on FOX, but he wanted the camera to stay on some business sign, as the wind was starting to peel it away. Oooh, gripping. Some of the channels kept saying landfall could come at "any time", even the eye was still 40 miles out. Gotta hype, gotta hype. Three buildings in Galveston caught fire, and that's all I heard about for 40 minutes. I figured maybe this hurricane isn't going to be too bad if the only thing they can find to beat to death is three burning buildings. Why not tell the stories of these military personnel and the work they are doing? Tell the story of the Iwo Jima, what they've been doing since Katrina, and their sortie to escape Rita? Or all of these operations, conducted by 72,000 troops? Did you know that many were involved? Yeah, I know why we don't see these kinds of stories on TV. Because this isn't nearly as exciting and gripping and heartpounding as this.
The military's humanitarian mission
If you didn't think the military has enough to do with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus its ongoing presence in South Korea, Germany, England, Guam, etc... plus sailing every ocean on the planet, the military is playing a significant role in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita, lending a helping hand to relief efforts. This web page, Military Support in the wake of the Gulf Coast Hurricanes, has the details. This story details the complex Air Force, Air Force Reserve, Coast Guard and National Guard operations. For example, The Air Force evacuated 16 F-16s and one C-26 from Ellington Field, in Houston. Six F-16s and the C-26 were evacuated to Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.; five F-16s to Fort Worth, Texas; two F-16s to Atlantic City, N.J.; two F-16s to Tulsa, Okla.; and one F-16 to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Two C-5 Galaxy aircraft with the 433rd Airlift Wing at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio are poised to assist with the evacuation of areas in Hurricane Rita's path, including Houston and Beaumont, Texas. The 433rd also sent a five-member aeromedical-evacuation command-and-control team to Beaumont to stand ready to operate a medical-evacuation control point from that location. The team initially responded to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The Air Force has five C-17s, six C-130s, three C-5s and two contingency-response groups on three-hour alert. Here is a hi-res photo showing U.S. Air Force personnel preparing an empty recruit house for evacuees of Hurricane Rita at Lackland Air Force Base. At Scott AFB, where my brother-in-law is stationed, Air Mobility Command has been involved with evacuations. On Sept. 21, AMC began positioning key personnel and resources throughout the Gulf Coast area in the event the storm delivers another devastating blow to that region.
The command also began airlifting patients and other evacuees from the path of the hurricane.
On two missions Sept. 22, C-9 and C-130 aircraft were used to transport more than 100 patients from Beaumont, Texas, and Port Arthur, Texas. According to AMC officials, the command was expected to evacuate between 1,700 and 2,000 patients from that area alone.
On Sept. 23, Col. Jeff Franklin, a senior controller with the Tanker Airlift Control Center here, said the command only had a few hours left to transport the remaining evacuees. "Were chasing the clock," he said. "The weather is getting real bad, real fast. We only have two and half to three hours to move these people."
He said the command is planning additional missions using C-17 aircraft from the 97th Air Mobility Wing (Altus AFB, Okla.), and the 62nd and 446th airlift wings at McChord AFB, Wash.; a C-141 from the 445th AW at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; as well as C-130s from Little Rock AFB, Ark., C-5s from Lackland AFB, Texas; and various other active duty, Guard and Reserve aircraft.
According to a McChord AFB press release, a C-17 assigned to the 313th Airlift Squadron (446th AW) there departed the base Sept. 22 en route to Travis AFB, Calif., to pick up 400 patient litters and 800 cargo straps. The crew is delivering the equipment to Beaumont where it will be pre-positioned for possible use in evacuating non-ambulatory patients. McChord AFB officials said another C-17, from the 62nd AW, departed the base today in support of Hurricane Rita operations. This page lists many many operations associated with Rita and Katrina. Yet more reasons to appreciate our hardworking, dedicated military! (btw, in her post on Michael Moore's website dated Sept 16, Cindy Sheehan said of those military units providing aid and comfort in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans: I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. Occupied New Orleans?!? The radical Left really are useful idiots at times, as they remind us what their bankrupt philosophy is capable of.)
Does a manic Iran worry you?
Michael Ledeen has another sui generis column in Iran up at NRO today. Ledeen has been one of the very strongest voices warning us of the nature of Iran's rulers. In the opening sentences of the column, Ledeen says: It was obvious from the outset that no good could come from these talks, because Iran will not abandon its nuclear program and neither the Europeans nor the Bush administration are prepared to do anything serious about it. The sham nuclear negotiations were in large part a way of avoiding what should be the central issue: Iran’s central role in the terror war against the West. Ledeen has been skeptical of our government's ability to respond: As I predicted after the elections, the regime is now showing its fangs, both at home and abroad. I have no doubt that the professional analysts in the State department, the intelligence community, and the National Security Council are presenting a soothing interpretation of these events, arguing that there is a new "administration" in Tehran, and it will take a bit of time before they tone down their rhetoric and come to terms with reality. But this assumes that the Iranians are capable of understanding reality, and that we are capable of understanding them. The record to date suggests both assumptions are false.
The mullahs are altogether capable of deciding that events are now running strongly in their favor, and that they should strike directly at the United States. They look at us, and they see a deeply divided nation, a president who talked a lot about bringing democratic revolution to Iran and then did nothing to support it, a military that is clearly fighting in Iraq alone, and counting the days until we can say "it’s up to the Iraqis now," and — again based on what they see in our popular press — a country that has no stomach for a prolonged campaign against the remaining terror masters in Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. In many of his other columns, Ledeen has urged the United Stated to foster regime change in Iran, to support dissidents and those in Iran who want to be free. His closes his column this way: Lacking any defined policy, we can only judge the president and his aides by their actions, and there aren’t any, aside from the occasional speech or offhand remark at a press conference. The mullahs see that, and treat it with the contempt it deserves. We are currently indistinguishable from the Europeans, who run whenever the Iranians snarl at them.
This is not a war on terror, it is paralysis at best, and appeasement at worst. The hell of it is that it is costing thousands of lives, and will cost many more until the terror masters are destroyed, or we surrender. Those words were inconceivable for many years, but it is a sign of our present fecklessness that they are now entirely appropriate. We can still lose this war. And we cannot win it so long as we are blinded by our potentially fatal failure of strategic vision: we are in a regional war, but we have limited our actions to a single theater. Our most potent weapons are political and ideological, but our actions have been almost exclusively military.
Our main enemy, the single greatest engine in support of the terror war against us, whether Sunni or Shiite, jihadi, or secular, Arab or British or Italian or Spaniard, is Iran. There is no escape from this fact. The only questions are how long it will take us to face it, how effective we will be when we finally decide to act, and how terrible the price will be for our long delay. In childhood we all learned about the silly ostrich who stuck its head in the sand when danger was near. We can look away, but the problem of Iran is not going away. Tick tick tick...
In Search Of... III
It's time for another installment of In Search Of... These are some of the more amusing web searches that have stumbled across my blog. (The previous installment is here.) -bippidy -use the bible mystically -sesame Street balloon on a stick -Book Peace like a river by Leif Enger what is the first chapter about -can you give me 5 ideas about peace is like -he went in his pants -Why it is that when we travel West we need longer time to adjust to jetlag than when we travel towards East -Cartoon outhouse measurements -a picture on a plate with 2 women going across the river with the caption of I'll show you across the river -send free indian magazine to iran -christian wackiness -pga tour network hot xm girls -how the harold hecuba did you do that -sweet life itself even the desperately sought chance
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