I feel sort of like Mike Adams when he writes for Townhall.com, wondering whether his wife is reading his prose about his Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin action figures.

Well, my wife doesn’t read my blog, so the secret about my love affair is safe with me and my readers.

For years I went to Myrtle Beach because my family wanted to.  They loved it.  I was mostly misreable.  There was hot sun, sand, salt and a gaggle of people.  Always a gaggle of people.  I would have been happier with a backpack strapped to me, hiking through the mountains of Appalachia under the canopy of the forest.  But if my family was happy, I was happy.

Still, she caught my eye.  I couldn’t help it.  Oh … my … goodness, was she magnificent!  Her curves were powerful, yet sleek.  I always had to admire her from a distance.  I was never with the “in” crowd, so I could only look and listen and wish.

When she graced us with her appearance, everyone looked.  And stared.  I do mean everyone.  Men, women and children.  But the men, especially.  Seeing her made the trips to the beach bearable for me, that is, right up until the time when Bill Clinton closed down Myrtle Beach Air Force Base.

Yes, that year was the last time I got to admire the A-10 “Warthog.”  I have always loved her.  I recall going on a tour of MBAFB with other civilians, and while standing before the beautiful A-10, some bimbo asked “where are the planes that Tom Cruise flew?”  I held my tongue, sort of.  I murmured something about the fact that ‘you’re an idiot, please allow the rest of us to enjoy the show.’

Here is a picture of the aircraft I saw that day:

It is a subsonic aircraft by design.  Its design is to lumber around the battlefield looking for tanks and other armored vehicles to kill.  It has been the most effective aircraft for doing just that every built and put into action.  It is more effective than the attack helicopter.

She has a 30 mm Gatling gun that fires (at the time we went on the tour) depleted Uranium bullets at the rate of 3900 rounds per minutes.  I distinctly recall the deep “Brrrrr …” of the gun during the first Gulf war, after which you knew that another of Sadam’s tanks had been destroyed.

Look at her engines.  They are in front of the rear wing, with the read wing being used as protection to decrease the heat signature of the engines in order to minimize the chances of a surface-to-air heat-seeking missle hurting her. 

It has a titanium bathtub for the pilot to sit above, and redundant hydraulics for control of the aircraft.  And just in case both trains of hydraulics are knocked out by enemy fire, there is backup manual control (by sticks and cables) to get the pilot home safely.

You can read more about her here and here and here.  But there is an ugly wind blowing.  It is going to cost money to keep the old girls going.  Let’s make sure that they get this money.  The Strategy Page has this:

August 18, 2006: The U.S. Air Force wants to keep it’s A-10 ground attack aircraft going at least another ten years. That means that over 300 of them have to be rebuilt and upgraded. That’s because the A-10s were built three decades ago, with a service life of 4,000 hours in the air. Most have already got over 6,000 hours. So refurbishment will extend service life to 16,000 hours, and install an F-16 like cockpit, along with the ability to use a targeting pod and deliver GPS and laser guided bombs. This makes the A-10 the most versatile ground support aircraft in service. The A-10 still has its 30mm cannon, which, while designed to destroying armored vehicles, has proved useful against all manner of targets. The targeting pod also enables A-10 pilots to cruise around at night, and get a high-resolution view of what’s going on down there. The infantry depend on the extra eye in the sky, and the ability to deliver anything from 30mm cannon fire, to Maverick missiles to 500 pound JDAM smart bombs.

You will not find a better lady for the job for this money anywhere.  She is absolutely magnificent, and while I will never get to ride aboard this beautiful aircraft, I can still admire her from a distance, can I not?

Postscript: My job is in nuclear engineering.  I can weigh in a bit on this issue of depleted Uranium.  By depleted, they mean that U-235 has been removed and the only thing left is U-238.  U-235 is fissile, which means that it can fission with a “thermal” neutron, while U-238 is fissionable, not fissile, and can fission only with a neutron above 1 MeV.  Translation: U-235 can be used to make a bomb.  U-238 can’t.  But it pays to use U-238 to make a bullet, because it has a density just above 10 grams/cc, as compared to steel (7.82 grams/cc) or lead (which is too soft and maleable to be used to kill armored vehicles).

The LA Times carried the story of the 21 former generals and other diplomats who sent the open letter to the President on Iran “not being a crisis.”  General Robert Gard was on the talking heads circuit trying to talk to anyone who would listen to him on the dangerous Bush policies in the Middle East.

From OneWorld US:

“We call on the administration to engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions to help resolve the current crisis in the Middle East and to settle differences over an Iranian nuclear program,” their letter read.

“An attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for security in the region and U.S. forces in Iraq,” they argued. “It would inflame hatred and violence in the Middle East and among Muslims everywhere.”

In a telephone news conference Thursday morning, the former security officials took particular aim at the Bush Administration’s policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists or with states that support them.

“That seems strange since Ronald Reagan was willing to negotiate with the Soviets even though they were the ‘Evil Empire,” said retired Lt. General Robert Guard (sic), who served as special assistant to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War and now works at the non-profit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “One wonders why George Bush can’t negotiate with the Axis of Evil.”

The generals further argued that the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq is at least partially responsible for Iran’s drive to develop a nuclear program.

“When you announce an axis of evil of three countries and invade one and then say that Iran should take that as a lesson, it does seem that it may give them an incentive to do precisely what they don’t want them to do,” Guard (sic) said, “develop a nuclear weapon.”

The pathetic OneWorld US can’t even get General Gard’s name spelled correctly (I had to use OneWorld because not many news outlets covered this story).  More pathetic is that the poor General can’t get his facts straight.

Ronald Reagan talked to Mikhail Gorbachev at a time when Perestroika was being pursued.  Reagan did not talk to Nikita Krushchev when he was shouting “We will bury you!” and banging his shoe on the table.  The times — if the General would simply recall — were the so-called “cold war.”  The USSR was once a powerful and recalcitrant Nation, but the arms race had bankrupted them and with the advent of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), Gorbachev, the kind of reformer who wanted to compromise anyway, was ready to come to the table without preconditions.

Its a strange idea, this notion of talking with these Hitleresque terrorists in Iran.  What, pray tell, would be the purpose?  To what end would we engage in talks?  What do you aim for when talking with a man that has sworn genocide and takeover of Israel and absolute destruction of the U.S.?  Do we aim for an agreement for partial rather than absolute destruction?  Who would we sacrifice in this partial destruction of our country?  Who gets swept up in this death march?

On the other hand, perhaps General Gard believes that if we just talk persuasively enough, we can persuade him not to wish and work for our destruction.  Is this it?  Do we propose to send our State Department representatives over to Iran to tutor him in the correct understanding of the Qur’an?

What specifically does General Gard propose?  Do we compromise by allowing him to enrich Uranium, thinking that the IAEA will actually be allowed to inspect his secret facilities to ensure that they stop at reactor-grade and do not proceed to weapons grade?

To say that threats against Iran if they continue to enrich Uranium will cause them to enrich Uranium rather than stopping it is analogous to saying that a threat to spank a child for bad behavior will only cause him behave more badly, so we shouldn’t spank him.  No one in the U.S. has, to the best of my knowledge, ever spoken of an attack on Iran in the case that it gives up its weapons program and support for world-wide terror.  It would make no sense, as Iran would hold no strategic value if they weren’t a sponsor of terror.

Finally, the General says that the Iranian nuclear situation is “not a crisis.”  Unless the General has specific knowledge of all of Iran’s centrifuges and how efficiently they were operating, and had performed SWU (Separative Work Unit) calculations to assess how far along Iran was with their enrichment program, how would he know?  Answer: He wouldn’t.

How sad.  General Gard, I feel sure, once had a stellar career.  The capstone of his career will now be rembered as this silly statement and his emotional antics on Television a few nights ago.

The AP is reporting:

Israeli soldiers returning from the war in Lebanon say the army was slow to rescue wounded comrades and suffered from a lack of supplies so dire that they had to drink water from the canteens of dead Hezbollah guerrillas.

“We fought for nothing. We cleared houses that will be reoccupied in no time,” said Ilia Marshak, a 22-year-old infantryman who spent a week in Lebanon.

Marshak said his unit was hindered by a lack of information, poor training and untested equipment. In one instance, Israeli troops occupying two houses inadvertently fired at each other because of poor communication between their commanders.

“We almost killed each other,” he said. “We shot like blind people. … We shot sheep and goats.”

[ … ]

“I personally haven’t thrown a grenade in 15 years, and I thought I’d get a chance to do so before going north,” an unidentified reservist in an elite infantry brigade was quoted as telling the Maariv daily.

Israel’s largest paper, Yediot Ahronot, quoted one soldier as saying thirsty troops threw chlorine tablets into filthy water in sheep and cow troughs. Another said his unit took canteens from dead guerrillas.

I had heard (from a source I will not name) an analysis from the U.S. that Israel doesn’t know how to conduct urban warfare; that U.S. troops practice stacks and room-clearing and various urban warfare tactics; and that the proof of U.S. readiness is what happened in Fallujah (and what happens every day in Iraq).  The U.S. is good at this.

But it would appear that Israel has allowed their readiness suffer, due in (at least some small) part to this over-reliance in air power.

The post-mortem on this whole ugly affair had better dig very deep and be very extensive.  Israel has up until now fielded troops and employed tactics looking as if its very existence depended upon being the premier military on earth.  This ordeal was a blunder of staggering proportions.

I know my place on the food chain.  I am still a very small blog, and it will likely remain that way.  I do not do this professionally (I am a working stiff), and I want to put quality posts on the site, so that limits the amount of posts I can make (and even so, I sometimes do not have the time to make my posts the quality that I want).

Having said that, this site has been “live” since June 7, 2006, for a total of 72 days.  We have now had:

• > 5000 site visits.
• > 11,800 page views.
• Spam Karma 2 has caught 353 spams. 

And according to Technorati, we have had 72 incoming links.

This isn’t so bad for 72 days in operation.

I especially appreciate my repeat readers.  I see you out there in the blogosphere.

I know my place on the food chain.  I am still a very small blog, and it will likely remain that way.  I do not do this professionally (I am a working stiff), and I want to put quality posts on the site, so that limits the amount of posts I can make (and even so, I sometimes do not have the time to make my posts the quality that I want).

Having said that, this site has been “live” since June 7, 2006, for a total of 72 days.  We have now had:

• > 5000 site visits.
• > 11,800 page views.
• Spam Karma 2 has caught 353 spams. 

And according to Technorati, we have had 72 incoming links.

This isn’t so bad for 72 days in operation.

I especially appreciate my repeat readers.  I see you out there in the blogosphere.

USA Today is Reporting:

WASHINGTON — The United States blocked an Iranian cargo plane’s flight to Syria last month after intelligence analysts concluded it was carrying sophisticated missiles and launchers to resupply Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, two U.S. intelligence officials say.

Eight days after Hezbollah’s war with Israel began, U.S. diplomats persuaded Turkey and Iraq to deny the plane permission to cross their territory to Damascus, a transfer point for arms to Hezbollah, the officials said.

The episode was detailed by one U.S. intelligence official who saw a report on the incident. It was confirmed by a U.S. official from a second intelligence agency and by a diplomat with a foreign government. They did not want their names used because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.

[ … ]

•July 15: Three days after the war began, a source tipped off U.S. intelligence about an imminent shipment of missiles from Iran to Hezbollah.

•July 19: A spy satellite photographed Iranian crews loading three missile launchers and eight crates, each normally used to carry a Chinese-designed C-802 Noor missile, aboard a transport plane at Mehrabad air base near Tehran. Israel says Hezbollah fired a C-802, a precision-guided anti-ship cruise missile, at an Israeli warship off Lebanon’s coast on July 14.

•July 20: The Ilyushin Il-76 transport plane left for Damascus, but Iraqi air-traffic controllers denied it permission to enter Iraq’s airspace. The Iranian flight crew then requested permission to fly over Turkey. Turkish controllers granted permission — but only if the plane would land for an inspection. The plane returned to Tehran, where the military cargo was unloaded.

•July 22: The plane flew humanitarian aid to Damascus after stopping for inspection in Turkey.

Though the missiles were not visible in the satellite photos, the launchers and specialized crates with distinctive shapes allowed U.S. analysts to identify the missile type, the intelligence officials said.

Asked about the account during an interview Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “We work on these kinds of things all the time.” But she added, “I can’t comment on specific cases.” 

So here is my question: why the cloak and dagger routine?  Can someone please name me one strategic advantage in the secrecy?

No, there is no advantage.  This is the State Department trying to fight our wars for us, and until and unless we unshackle the armed forces of our country and finally go public with who we are fighting and what the real enemy is, this is still a secret war conducted for secret reasons by secret people at the State Department.

When this information was gleaned by our intelligence services, Bush should have marched out in front of the press corps in Washington, announced that Iran was trying to resupply Hezbollah, and said that the U.S. will blast the plane out of the sky if it didn’t turn around; and then videotape it and put in on the news if the plane actually tried to land and we had to shoot it out of the air.  In the background (double frame) of this videotape we should have had the brass at CENTCOM watching and cheering as the plane went down in flames.

We’ve absolutely got to get serious about this international war.  Finally, Michelle Malkin (actually, Bryan Preston over at Hotair.com) has a vent on “Flower Power Never Won a War.”

**** UPDATE ****

John Hawkins at RWN has this to say:

I’m still of the opinion that since Hezbollah is flagrantly violating the ceasefire by refusing to disarm or go North and since the international force is starting to fall apart before it gets started (Thank you, France), Israel should start bombing again.

I would add to this by saying that they should never have stopped bombing (nor should they have held in abatement an aggressive land invasion).  I said so from the beginning of this campaign.  Just after posting the original post below, I was watching coverage at FNC on southern Lebanon, and the reporter commented that disarming Hezbollah would be impossible because, in her words, “they have melted into the population and hidden their weapons.”

Of course they have.  Without a land invasion to root this out Israel cannot win.  And without eventually confronting the terror-master Iran (whose surrogate is Hezbollah), neither the U.S. nor Israel will win against terror.  The head of the snake must be cut off.  Our war is with Iran who supports the Shia in Iraq and Hezbollah in Iran.  We just haven’t battled them directly yet.  We are fighting a proxy war thus far.

**** ORIGINAL POST ****

The Strategy Page has this interesting assessment of the Israel – Hezbollah conflict:

August 16, 2006: The success of the ceasefire in Lebanon hinges on a condition that Lebanon and Hizbollah both insist will not happen. Hizbollah is supposed to disarm, but says bluntly that it will not do so. The Lebanese government says it will not force Hizbollah to disarm. So what’s going to happen? It appears that Israel is going to hold the UN responsible for carrying out its peace deal, and disarm Hizbollah. To that end, Israel will withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and leave it to UN peacekeepers to do what they are obliged to do. But here’s the catch, not enough nations are stepping forward to supply the initial 3,500 UN forces, much less the eventual 15,000 UN force. However, it is likely that, eventually, enough nations will supply troops. But many of those contingents may not be willing to fight Hizbollah. Israel says it will not completely withdraw from Lebanon until the UN force is in place.The Israeli strategy appears to be to allow the UN deal to self-destruct. If the UN peacekeepers can disarm Hizbollah, fine. If not, Israeli ground troops will come back in and clear everyone out of southern Lebanon. At that point, it will be obvious that no one else is willing, or able, to deal with the outlaw “state-within-a-state” that Hizbollah represents. Hizbollah will still exist after being thrown out of southern Lebanon, and it will be up to the majority of Lebanese, and the rest of the Arab world, to deal with Hizbollah and radical Shias.

Hizbollah suffered a defeat. Their rocket attacks on Israel, while appearing spectacular (nearly 4,000 rockets launched), were unimpressive (39 Israelis killed, half of them Arabs). On the ground, Hizbollah lost nearly 600 of its own personnel, and billions of dollars worth of assets and weapons. Israeli losses were far less. 

 

Well, I don’t completely buy it.  My post just below indicates my position on Iran: they are the clear winner, but I didn’t assess Hezbollah.

Israel did not win, but it would appear to me that Hezbollah didn’t either.  The problem for Israel is that Israel is still at risk of war with Iran by proxy.

As to this notion that the U.N. plan will fall apart, perhaps it will.  But I don’t think that this will be something that will be announced from the rooftops.  The failure will be invisible to the world, because Hezbollah will be re-armed by night and by trickery and by deceipt.

Eventually, terrorism will befall the “peace-keeping” troops in southern Lebanon, but by then it will be too late.  Hezbollah will be back up to strength and ready to wage war again will Israel.

**** UPDATE ****

John Hawkins at RWN has this to say:

I’m still of the opinion that since Hezbollah is flagrantly violating the ceasefire by refusing to disarm or go North and since the international force is starting to fall apart before it gets started (Thank you, France), Israel should start bombing again.

I would add to this by saying that they should never have stopped bombing (nor should they have held in abatement an aggressive land invasion).  I said so from the beginning of this campaign.  Just after posting the original post below, I was watching coverage at FNC on southern Lebanon, and the reporter commented that disarming Hezbollah would be impossible because, in her words, “they have melted into the population and hidden their weapons.”

Of course they have.  Without a land invasion to root this out Israel cannot win.  And without eventually confronting the terror-master Iran (whose surrogate is Hezbollah), neither the U.S. nor Israel will win against terror.  The head of the snake must be cut off.  Our war is with Iran who supports the Shia in Iraq and Hezbollah in Iran.  We just haven’t battled them directly yet.  We are fighting a proxy war thus far.

**** ORIGINAL POST ****

The Strategy Page has this interesting assessment of the Israel – Hezbollah conflict:

August 16, 2006: The success of the ceasefire in Lebanon hinges on a condition that Lebanon and Hizbollah both insist will not happen. Hizbollah is supposed to disarm, but says bluntly that it will not do so. The Lebanese government says it will not force Hizbollah to disarm. So what’s going to happen? It appears that Israel is going to hold the UN responsible for carrying out its peace deal, and disarm Hizbollah. To that end, Israel will withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and leave it to UN peacekeepers to do what they are obliged to do. But here’s the catch, not enough nations are stepping forward to supply the initial 3,500 UN forces, much less the eventual 15,000 UN force. However, it is likely that, eventually, enough nations will supply troops. But many of those contingents may not be willing to fight Hizbollah. Israel says it will not completely withdraw from Lebanon until the UN force is in place.The Israeli strategy appears to be to allow the UN deal to self-destruct. If the UN peacekeepers can disarm Hizbollah, fine. If not, Israeli ground troops will come back in and clear everyone out of southern Lebanon. At that point, it will be obvious that no one else is willing, or able, to deal with the outlaw “state-within-a-state” that Hizbollah represents. Hizbollah will still exist after being thrown out of southern Lebanon, and it will be up to the majority of Lebanese, and the rest of the Arab world, to deal with Hizbollah and radical Shias.

Hizbollah suffered a defeat. Their rocket attacks on Israel, while appearing spectacular (nearly 4,000 rockets launched), were unimpressive (39 Israelis killed, half of them Arabs). On the ground, Hizbollah lost nearly 600 of its own personnel, and billions of dollars worth of assets and weapons. Israeli losses were far less. 

 

Well, I don’t completely buy it.  My post just below indicates my position on Iran: they are the clear winner, but I didn’t assess Hezbollah.

Israel did not win, but it would appear to me that Hezbollah didn’t either.  The problem for Israel is that Israel is still at risk of war with Iran by proxy.

As to this notion that the U.N. plan will fall apart, perhaps it will.  But I don’t think that this will be something that will be announced from the rooftops.  The failure will be invisible to the world, because Hezbollah will be re-armed by night and by trickery and by deceipt.

Eventually, terrorism will befall the “peace-keeping” troops in southern Lebanon, but by then it will be too late.  Hezbollah will be back up to strength and ready to wage war again will Israel.

Bill Roggio has a very good piece over at the Counterterrorism Blog, entitled “After Action Report: Winners and Losers in the Hezbollah-Israel War.”  Regarding Iran, he says:

The 24 year old Iranian project of funding, training and arming Hezbollah in Lebanon has netted a large return. While the Israeli withdrawal form southern Lebanon in 2000 was certainly a victory for Hezbollah and their Iranian backers, the current Hezbollah victory is far more significant. Hezbollah gave the appearance of directly defeating the Israelis and forcing them to the negotiating table within one month of the onset of fighting.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and the elite Qods Force have created a powerful military and political force capable of spreading the radical Khomenist agenda. The Hezbollah model is a tried and proven method of the subversive Iranian foreign policy, and will be applied elsewhere. The IRGC and Qods will study the Hezbollah-Israel war and apply the lessons learned to improve this model, as well as to incorporate the military and political lessons into their own doctrine. The IDF fights as most Western armies do, and the Israeli political vulnerabilities are also shared throughout the West.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s gambit has paid dividends, and he has successfully distracted efforts to cease the refinement of uranium and the further development of its nuclear program. “Today, we are fully mastering the nuclear fuel cycle for our peaceful atomic activities. It is a native technology… No one can take it away from us,” said Ahmadinejad, who has been emboldened by Hezbollah’s victory against Israel. The Western world has signaled it is fearful of confronting Ahmadinejad or his terrorist proxy Hezbollah head on. Ahmadinejad ‘s stature is the Islamic world will only grow over time as he demonstrates the ability to stand up to the West. 

Continuing the discussion, Iran has won in even more ways that Bill ennumerated here.  The IDF failed to drive Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, and more specifically, Hezbollah still has thousands of rockets to fire at Israel.  Given the ability to hide and discretely fire Katyusha rockets, no one but the dilusional would believe that any amount of so-called “peace-keeping” troops will be able to keep Iran from re-supplying Hezbollah to replenish their stockpile of terror weapons.

So the surrogate military force that Iran has in southern Lebanon has not been disarmed, will not be disarmed, and has now achieved rock-star popularity in the Muslim world due to the failure of the IDF to decisively defeat them.

In a recent post I cited an editorial from one of Iran’s hard line newspapers, where they seemed to parrot the hard line from the Muslim leadership:

“The American defeat and withdrawal from Iraq will forever bury the Neoconservative current in the U.S.,…while the formation of an Islamist state in Iraq, which will be a natural ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will form a contiguous link between Iran and Palestine through Syria and Lebanon, will bring about a sea change in the geo-strategic balance in the region in favour of Iran and to America’s detriment. This new alliance with its huge size will directly influence all developments in the Arab and Muslim Middle East

There is much good news and information coming from Iraq, as you can tell from a brief (or even a prolonged) visit to the web site of the Multi-National Force – Iraq.  I get the MNF newsletter and visit the web site regularly.

However, there is also disturbing news that still comes from Iraq.  The Washington Post had an article some time back on the resurgence of Kurdish nationalism.  There is a strong Kurhish population in Turkey, and in fact Turkish troops have been inside Iraq before (Turkey fears that Kurdish elements in Turkey and Iraq might unite to form a de facto nation).

The Seattle Times has hints of sectarianism building in Iraq, and there are undercurrents of a push for regional rule in Iraq.

But is is very difficult to imagine an Iraq without a stable and strong central government that is anything but a puppet of Iran.  Let’s remember what Iran’s position is on Iraq, straight from an editorial from one of Iran’s hard line newspapers:

“The American defeat and withdrawal from Iraq will forever bury the Neoconservative current in the U.S.,…while the formation of an Islamist state in Iraq, which will be a natural ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will form a contiguous link between Iran and Palestine through Syria and Lebanon, will bring about a sea change in the geo-strategic balance in the region in favour of Iran and to America’s detriment. This new alliance with its huge size will directly influence all developments in the Arab and Muslim Middle East