Good news:

According to CNN, the official favorite cable news network of The Country Pundit, our boys in beige have laid the smack down on the Fedayeen Saddam, inflicting 46 KIA, 18 WIA, with an additional 8 POWs. Our people suffered no KIA and 5 WIA; 3 of the latter have been transported to hospitals with injuries that do not appear life-threatening.

The Baathist attacks were upon two different targets but were launched "simultaneously", according to CNN. In both instances, American convoys were targeted.

The Country Pundit's favorite part (other than the announced kill ratio):

Troops from the 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment and U.S. military police responded with a barrage of cannon fire from tanks and armored personnel carriers, [Master Sergeant Robert] Cargie said. When the attackers put up a makeshift barricade in an attempt to block one convoy, U.S. armor steamrolled over it, he said.

The Baathists provoked our 120mm and 25mm cannon fire with improvised explosive devices, rifles, mortars, and the by-now ubiquitous rocket-propelled grenades. Apparently the state of education in Saddam's Iraq was such that these guys were dumb enough to think that they'll get away with this one. Deliberate suicide attacks might be rather difficult to stop, but I bet these schmoes thought they were going to be getting the bling bling (or something) for spilling American blood. What they didn't get told was that the only bling bling in it for them was the approximate sound of American cartridge cases hitting concrete. Muahahaha.

Woo friggin' hoo. In the immortal words of video game hero Duke Nukem, "Come get some!"¹ I can only get a Calvinesque big evil grin on my face coupled with a guttural laugh of "Heh heh heh" when reading about this. It's just too perfect---I'm glad we're whipping up on these people.²

Message for the Fedayeen Saddam: Your beatings will continue until resistance ceases.

¹ I am aware of the fact that Bruce Campbell's Ash utters these words ahead of Duke in terms of a popular culture timeline, but Duke Nukem 3D was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase.

² Despite the obviously celebratory nature of this post, the Pundit is a Christian man and will remember the souls of the dead in his evening prayer, wishing that it didn't have to be this way---it doesn't; go home and build the new no-Saddam Iraq---but not wavering in his resolve to support seeing the mission through and getting our people out. Every time some third-world militia tries to kill our people, I usually cheer at their failure but then I'm also reminded of the words uttered at the 1898 Battle of Santiago Bay by the captain of USS Texas, John Woodward Philip, as his ship helped pound the Spanish Oquendo: "Don't cheer boys, the poor devils are dying." I hate war.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Dana at Note-It Posts, home of America's #1 Pin-Up Girl, for the notification.

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Ninety years ago today, HMS Warspite, a fast battleship of the Queen Elizabeth-class was launched at Devonport Dockyard, Plymouth.

Warspite is arguably one of the Royal Navy's most famous battleships, and participated in both World Wars. While serving with the Fifth Battle Squadron at Jutland on May 31, 1916, her rudder jammed and she made two complete turns while exposed to Reinhard Scheer's High Seas Fleet. One source credits her with absorbing multiple hits of various caliber, and yet Warspite returned home to Scapa Flow.

She would be modernized between the wars, altering her appearance. For a variety of photographs, see this site.

During World War II, she fought in the European and Mediterranean areas, participating in the sinking of both Kriegsmarine and Regia Marina units. Her list of battle honors, as compiled in the authoritative work on her (HMS Warspite, by Stephen Roskill), are reproduced here:

Narvik 1940

Calabria 1940

Matapan 1941

Crete 1941

Libya 1942

North Africa 1943

Sicily 1943

Salerno 1943

Normandy 1944

Walcheren 1944

It was in combat with the latter at Calabria that Warspite established what appears to be the world record for naval gunnery, achieving a hit on the Italian battleship Guilio Cesare at over 26,000 yards. (Sources suggest either 26,400 or 26,600; the point is moot because the distance is fifteen miles either exactly or with a tenth of a mile on the side.)

Warspite also had the distinction of being one of the early targets for guided weapons, as she took a hit from the German Fritz-X/FX-1400 guided bomb. Fritz-X was, in the words of Emmanuel Gustin, "the first successful guided bomb. It consisted of a 1400kg armour-piercing bomb, fitted with four wings in a cruciform arrangement, and a tail ring with spoilers for control. It was usually carried by specially equipped Do 217 or He 177 bombers. In the launch aircraft, an operator steered the bomb to its target using a radio command link." Warspite survived this encounter with the Fritz-X, but was seriously damaged and was never fully repaired.

Her last service was as a fire support vessel, lending her 15" main battery to the landings at Normandy. At this point, one of her 15" turrets was out of service, and she had concrete patches (!?!) keeping her afloat. The FX-1400 had done with one shot what the might of the Germans in two wars and the Italians in one could not do. She also struck a mine on June 13, 1944, and added insult to injury. She saw action also at Walcheren but was otherwise essentially inactive throughout the remainder of the war period.

Sadly, she would not be preserved as was Admiral Lord Nelson's Victory. In March of 1946, the Admiralty handed down her death sentence in seven short words: Approved for HMS Warspite to be scrapped. Yet, the story of this defiant battleship wasn't over. On her way to the breakers in Faslane, Warspite ran aground at Prussin Cove, Mounts Bay, Cornwall on April 23, 1947. Her shattered hulk remained there for nine years as she was scrapped in place. See here for a picture of Warspite shot during this period.

I forgot to publish this after saving. Mea culpa.

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To follow up with something I agreed with in my prior post about Orson Scott Card, a quick opinion on the conduct of the security operations in Iraq:

"What To Do"

Right now, we're in a fight for the hearts and minds of Iraqis. There are two basic paths to victory I think we need to be proceeding on:

1. Restoration of a civil state. This means fix the power grid, get running water restored, and establish basic governmental services. From what I understand, we're doing pretty good on that mark. This also means the creation of a pluralistic government which does something approaching Western concepts of a limited government, instead of using its subjects for mulch. This will take some time, and it isn't a fool-proof process.

2. Secure the Iraqi people. The model for here came to me in the context of gangsters. Moral arguments about using gangsters aside, it seems like a useful framework to proceed. Basically, what we've done is knock off the neighborhood thug, like opposing interests tried to do to Don Corleone in the early sequences of The Godfather. However, our Corleone, Saddam Hussein, still has his men running around trying to keep fragments of his power.

We must treat the situation over there as if we're the new guys muscling in, because that's exactly what we are. That means that we've got to be tough about the old guys, and we've got to win the loyalty of the people. How do you win loyalty? A simple exchange: You, the new boss, make it worth the people's while to be loyal to you. Essentially, it boils down to protection. We must protect the people of Iraq from Saddam's enforcers.

At some level, Baathist thugs are probably running around saying things like, "Saddam hears all! Saddam remembers your loyalty to him/disloyalty to him!" Well, fine. Let him hear everything---hopefully what he hears will be "Eff you" in Arabic. I read somewhere on the 'net that graffiti was being seen now that said, in a message to Iraqi children, "The hand that waves to Americans will be the hand that is cut off", approximately. This is utter barbarism, and we have seen it before, in the steaming jungles of Southeast Asia practiced by the Viet Cong. More on that later.

One thing that I keep hearing that the Iraqis are afraid of is the return of Saddam. Given the stakes, their fear is justified. What we do about that fear is demonstrate conclusively that the game is over and that Saddam Hussein is no Comeback Kid. No amounts of 'Hail Usay' passes are going to work.

Given what I see as the realities of the situation, the way to do the above is through a systematic application of two things: Protection, for the common people of Iraq, and annihilation for the soldiers of Saddam.¹

Protection and annihilation comes from one thing: Clearly and unequivocal establishment of the fact that any attempt to enforce the writ of Saddam leads to the rapid and inescapable death of his enforcers. How do we do this? By protecting the people.

The Iraqi people are roughly in the position of the undertaker who comes to Corleone and asks for things to be made right with respect to his, the undertaker's, daughter. How did Corleone respond? He said "Yes". The man was loyal after that, to the point of working on Sonny Corleone's body after his murder. This is our opportunity.

When the local Baathist thug decides that he's going to threaten a citizen, that citizen should be able to come to the nearest American (or the Iraqi Police) installation and ask for protection. When he asks, he will be told "yes", with the only questions being asked are the ones that get our troops in position. We ought to promise his protection in exchange for his loyalty.

When Saddam's thugs show up, the United States Army meets them at the door and instantly introduces the Baathists to the consequences of meddling with our people. Drag the bodies of the Baathists out in the street and announce loudly that anyone who tries to enforce Saddam's law will meet the same fate. Repeat this throughout the land, and I think you'll see a change for the better in Iraq.

Otherwise, we're leaving these poor people to suffer the fate of Vietnamese villagers who were brutalized into cooperation with the North Vietnamese. We'd come by and offer food, shelter, and things like that if the villagers would help. The Viet Cong came by and disemboweled, raped, tortured, and murdered whoever they suspected of being less than 100% in Uncle Ho's corner. That we didn't engage in systematic and similarly single-minded defense of these villagers is probably something we'll answer for some day. We have an opportunity in Iraq to erase a mistake of Vietnam in that respect, and I hope America takes it.

A two-fold message must be delivered: To the Iraqi people and the world at large, "Sic semper Baathists". To the Baathists themselves, "Your time is over, and you leave with nothing."

This is not a perfect strategy, and it's downright dangerous at some levels. I do, however, think that if America is willing to make things expensive for Saddam's thugs, the Baathists will find a curious shortage of men willing to go canvassing for terror. Hopefully, the intelligence deficit I hear our commanders suggesting as the big problem right now will dry up if we give it a reason to. Similarly, it is possible that the spectacle of American troops being mutilated after their deaths might not be repeated---citizens wholly loyal to us and the new government would not tolerate an act likely to anger their benefactors.

I don't suggest this because I'm particularly a fan of the mafia. I suggest it because I want our troops home and I want a stable, republican Iraq² to join the community of nations. The only way to those ends is through the roadblock we call 'Saddam Hussein'. I suggest we remove that roadblock with as much force as we can muster.

¹ By "soldiers of Saddam", I mean those fighting under his name now; I don't really care about the late Iraqi army in terms of this discussion.

² Admittedly, I heard an interesting proposal yesterday on National Public Radio, submitted by the chief foreign correspondent for the New York Times, one that suggested segmenting Iraq into three separate states, comprised primarily of Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis, respectively. I haven't read his article yet, but I'm generally fond of the idea of fixing the mistakes of partition made 75-odd years ago or more.

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Orson Scott Card, of Ender's Game note, has written a column that discusses the war on Islamists. It's definitely worth a read, even if you haven't read his books or don't know who he is.

Several extracts:

To think that the war is "over" and we should be working on an "exit strategy" is as stupid as saying, after Allied troops drove the Germans out of North Africa, that it was time for our boys to come home -- with France and Eastern and Northern Europe still in chains.

. . . .

As for Saudi Arabia, well, it's not so much that we can't trust the government there, it's that they're barely holding on to power, and their most likely successors, if they fall, will be a group of fanatics who think Osama's a wimp.

If they ever get control of the Muslim holy places, then any action we took against such a government would serve to unite all the Muslim world against us. It would be a disaster of the worst order ... and yet it's hard to see how we can prevent it.

Our only hope is to have finished our job before the Saudi government falls. If fanatics take over Saudi Arabia, but they find themselves surrounded by powerful democratic Muslim nations that are firm enemies of terrorism, then America will not have to be involved in the struggle over control of Muslim holy places.

If we're very, very lucky, that's how it will play out.

. . . .

President Bush's consolation can be this: When Abraham Lincoln was conducting the Union side of the Civil War, he faced exactly the same kind of vicious stupidity -- and he had to do it without the benefit of competent generals to lead the troops. It took him years of trying incompetents like McLellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, and, yes, even Meade, before he got his winning team.

Mr. Card's entire essay is well worth reading. Part of it is triumphant, part of it is chilling, and part of it is ire-inspiring. Mr. Card also notes his belief that,

It is possible to be critical of real problems and raise real questions, while remaining loyal to our soldiers and to the mission of defending the United States (and the rest of the world) from Islamicist terrorism.

This I agree with. Now, my quasi-Nixonian mind clicks and spins for hours (not really) on How to Win, and my whole preference for "watch what we do, not what we say" so I tend to wind up deciding that the people in the current administration have the best operable plan at any given time. This is partly because I defer to those who have classified intelligence (since I do not and do not want it) and also because I have perhaps the naive belief that men and women find much of their ideology set aside when dealing with threats of this order to the Republic, and will act more or less in the interests of America. Our government is large, and it has good people serving in it---at some level, good people will, to steal a phrase from George C. Scott's George Patton, "know what to do".

That's not just some cockamanie theory I concocted to defend George W. Bush; I'm quite willing to extend it to any Administration until I'm convinced that they're not acting in our interests. Thus, I'm somewhat divided on Clinton---I thought DESERT FOX was a good idea, but I also wondered about the timing---but I'll commit to a measure of honesty and reserve judgment to some time in the future when the third-rate tell-alls are through and objective historians can assess his record.¹

Anyways. I haven't delved into the host site of Mr. Card's essay, so I can't vouch for its ideological position. To be honest with you, I'm sort of unconcerned about it.

Please allow me a personal note: When I first started thinking about getting in on "the blog thing" (apologies to Eugene W. Roddenberry), it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, this could be the forerunner of the very things a man named Orson Scott Card described in his book, Ender's Game. Peter and Valentine Wiggin, both children and siblings to Andrew (who's off learning to be a child strategic genius) begin posting their political opinions (kind of like a future Federalist Papers) to various global networks, and eventually they, using the names of Demonsthenes and Locke, get to the point where they are able to influence government policy and public opinion.

Maybe I, and every other pundit-type who hammers away on keyboards, from the fringes of the far left to the fringes of the far right, are perhaps laying the groundwork for that. Or perhaps we'll be the shoulders of giants upon which those two children stand. I'm not entirely sure where this blog thing will lead, but it'll be an interesting trip.

¹ My position on this comes from an old, old copy of the American Heritage magazine, in its "Brushes With History" (approximately) section. The following is a vague memory of something that was read in the early 1990s, so if anyone can find this and correct me, please do.

A man observed a student in the 1960s, all full of vim and vigor, come up to an old man and harangue him about the failures of Alexander Kerensky's government in Russia and how they should have done this, and that, and so on. This continued for several minutes, while the old man (apparently a lecturer at the university) listened without comment.

He turned to the student and said, "We did the best that we could", and Alexander Kerensky shuffled away, hanging his head.

For some reason, that story has colored my views of outsider critiques of governments ever since.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Kevin Patrick at Blogs for Bush.

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According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, the State of Texas and others are vying to get CV-34 USS Oriskany. Great, right?

Wrong.

The Oriskany is no longer a fighting flat-top in America's navy, and she's not being considered for a museum. (Would that the Texans could have preserved her in the mode of the Texas...) Indeed, her fate is now to be converted into an artificial reef, as the U.S. Maritime Administration will do with her what neither the North Koreans nor the North Vietnamese could do to her during the Cold War, namely sink the thing.

Part of me knows that we can't preserve every warship that the Navy's ever owned, but another part of me is always saddened when I hear of yet another warship going to her fate. Pictures of the scrapping of HMS Warspite produce a catch in the throat and a twinge of regret. Similarly, seeing for example South Dakota with her superstructure erased and her main battery carved up is an unwelcome image. (That one's in a book, but here is a shot of the SoDak on her way to her end.)

This even extends to vessels in the modern era: Having grown up with pictures of the freakishly beautiful and cutting edge Long Beach, I was saddened to hear that she'd been reduced to wreckage at Puget Sound. I was also incensed that Senator John Warner hadn't been able to preserve USS Virginia, which is also "featured" on the Don Shelton Puget Sound Naval Shipyard page. This is less logical than conventional-fired ships; I'm not sure you can actually keep an atomic-powered vessel around, although happily Nautilus is proving me wrong.

Anyways, back to the Oriskany. The first time I ever heard of her was in Top Gun, when CDR Mike 'Viper' Metcalfe mentioned flying with Duke Mitchell off of the ship in Southeast Asia. I don't know much else about her, but she served us well, and I wish that she could be preserved for the foreseeable future as a memorial to the Cold War. Alas, Oriskany.

Two useful links with regards to the vessel are:
The Navy's Naval Historical Center
Oriskany Reunion Association Website

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Jed at Boots and Sabers for the link.

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The Dixie Flatline has some unwelcome news posted, and it's the kind I don't like to read. Apparently, some of the people that we spent good American and British lives liberating have decided to go Somali on our troops.

Apparently, some guys from the 101st Airborne were driving in a vehicle that came under attack. For whatever reason, their vehicle crashed into a wall, and the men were dragged clear by Iraqis. Unfortunately, they were not dragged to safety, but rather to a grisly mutiliation, having their heads bashed in by concrete blocks.

I can only hope and pray that our men were dead beforehand.

It's times like this that I really have to remind myself that I'm a civilized human being and that my immediate response isn't the one that would work. What's my response? Call the airbase at Diego Garcia and order up a three-ship cell of B-52H Stratofortresses loaded with Mark 82 500-pound bombs, detailed for area saturation bombing. Send 'em in low over the city of Mosul so that the people can hear them¹ and obliterate the area where this took place. To get the point across send in some people to get out the message of, "Don't mess with us. We're here to liberate you from a monster, but they don't call us the Great Satan for nothing. Do not request a demonstration."

That ain't the right way to think about things, but darned if I can't suppress the urge to reach out and throttle the punks that did this. I bet they think they're real tough, eh. If they're so tough, let's see them take those blocks after an M1A2 Abrams. Concrete block beats head, 120mm armor-piercing fin-stabilized depleted-uranium sabot round beats concrete block. As RoboCop used to say, "Your move, creep."

Winning hearts and minds is the proper macro-strategy, but I can't help thinking that from time to time an abject example ought to be made of those who would desecrate the bodies of our dead. Little monsters. Where's Mr. Blonde when you need him?

1 "Do you hear that, Mr. Iraqi Concrete Block-wielding Punk? It is the sound of an incoming Stratofortress. It is the sound of your city's death. Goodbye, Mr. Iraqi."

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to The Dixie Flatline for this story.

UPDATE: Psycho Dad, over at The Psychotic Rant was kind enough to mention me in his dispatch, and suggest that people read my remarks. Much thanks, PD

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1 500lb bombs? Are you out of your mind? I have a much better solution. More bang for the buck if you will. Think - Massive Ordinance Air Burst - MOAB - or as it is better known, the Mother Of All Bombs. 21,500 pounds of precision guided high explosive. Hmmm, 3 or 4 of them should get their attention. More info here Here's the link incase the html above doesn't work: http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/affacts/blmoab.htm

Posted by: Psycho Dad at November 24, 2003 03:39 AM (4q6vH)

2 Heh heh heh, he said MOAB. I'm not making an efficient military decision. I'm simply going for mass destruction as delivered by the aircraft that has stood for "END OF THE WORLD!" for half a century. Nobody's scared of a C-130, unless it's an AC-130U in which case you run away and die tired. A reference book I've got on the B-52 (and other sources as well) seem to indicate that the aircraft can carry up to 51 Mark 82s in the area attack role. I figure 153 bombs released within a short interval will do the job in such a way that the little punks responsible will either a) be obliterated or b) spend the rest of their lives in sheer terror any time they hear a jet engine, because they'll remember the contrast between the fun they had mutilating our boys, and the absolute panic of seeing a wall of explosions march towards them. For comparison, my method puts ~76,500 pounds of explosives in the target area and it takes a little while to get there, generating the desired psychological effect. The MOAB, while being a really cool weapon and all, doesn't fit what I want this hypothetical raid to do.

Posted by: The Country Pundit at November 24, 2003 11:02 AM (52RT4)

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General Colin Powell isn't my favorite in the Bush Administration. (See Rumsfeld, Donald H.) Sometimes, however, Powell comes through with a home run. This is one of those times.

I was browsing the archive of Free Market Fairy Tales (great blog, by the way) and found Secretary Powell's remark in this post. My reaction was simple: My jaw dropped, then came back up in a tight line, and I lowered my head in response to something that landed deep within whatever part of me responds to overwhelming emotional force in its most simple form. There couldn't possible be a better answer to the Archbishop of Canterbury's question. Sure, one might have some flashy or high-sounding statement of principle or a cutting remark, but what Colin Powell said was direct, to the point, and utterly irrefutable.

What did he say in response to the Archbishop's question about American plans for postwar Iraq and American empire-building?

"Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those who did not return."

Mr Free Market reports that the room in which this took place became "really quiet". As it should have---nothing more neither need have been nor should have been said.

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Check your calendars, ladies and gentlemen: Today is Veterans' Day.

I don't have some eloquent Buckleyian elocution put to pixels to offer today, but I can say this: To every man or woman who's ever carried a rifle, swabbed a deck, or strapped into an airplane, thank you for going out to face the enemies of the United States of America. It's the sacrifices of people like you who let me sit back here in Virginia and fumble my way through law school.

Special thanks go to my dad, who once upon a time worked on tanks and assorted armored vehicles somewhere out in Texas and Oklahoma. I'm pretty sure he wasn't thinking about building a future for his son at the time, but he wound up doing it.

If you're like me and have never served a day in the military, find a veteran today and thank them for their service. America has been the better for their presence, and we owe them a debt that may not be repayable.

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I was browsing threads in alt.fan.don-imus yesterday, when I happened upon the following entry by Ron Hardin, a prolific and regular poster to the newsgroup. In that post, Mr. Hardin suggests that President Clinton would have met the crew of the EP-3E Aries II SIGINT platform intercepted and forced down by the People's Republic of China when that crew arrived in Hawaii. Mr. Hardin also says President Bush would not have done this, noting that a Presidential reception in Hawaii "makes the service about [the President]".

I suppose I'm curious as to why that would be the case. There might be a solid argument for a Rose Garden reception within a week of their return for maximum ruffles and flourishes. You know, the majesty and dignity of the White House, et cetera. However, from a visual and symbolic standpoint, I also tend to think that it would send a powerful and unadorned (in a good way) message to have the men (and women?) of the aircraft greeted by no less than the President as they return to freedom. Let them disembark from their flight to a red-carpet reception party with the President waiting at the foot of the stairs in front one of those portable podiums with the Secretary of the Navy and an appropriate uniformed officer to shake their hands, exchange salutes, and then have a brief statement or so from the proper parties. That's a run-on sentence, but it conveys how I thought such things should be "ideally" greeted.

I suppose the best analog for this would be the reception given to our POWs as they were liberated from the clutches of the North Vietnamese. President Nixon was not at the arrival ceremonies, and I could see him going for the dignfied majestic concept ("The President must be presidential. See to it, Haldeman" -- RN) very readily.

After some reflection, I suppose it's more a commentary upon the political culture than anything else. For whatever reason, when a political figure is in attendance at a serious event, the motivations are analyzed as less of "the 'decent' motives of the man" and more of the "present for photographic opportunity purposes" stripe. When Mayor Giuliani attended a slew of funerals for the fire, police, and Port Authority personnel killed in the Islamist attacks against New York City, there wasn't any hubbub about him grandstanding that I recall. That may be explained by simply stating "that was different" and forcibly moving on to the next example for consideration.

Admittedly, all this stems from an article penned by Maureen Dowd at the New York Times over a closing of Dover AFB for pictures when caskets of servicemen are returned, so it's probably a waste of electrons. Cori Dauber looked at the issue here, but I'm not sure I agree with Dauber's take on it.

I don't know that Robert E. Lee attended the funerals of soldiers from the Army of Northern Virginia who were KIA against the Army of the Potomac, or indeed if any major leader does things like that. I do, however, disagree that it would somehow be inappropriate. Indeed, if my (speculative) offspring were killed in battle in some faraway land, I would appreciate the presence of the President at the funeral to tell me that my son died fighting for American ideals and so forth. It would be meaningful to me to receive the flag on behalf of a grateful nation from the one individual who can be most said to represent America at any one point.

This is probably all academic anyways, so I'd probably have to defer to the judgments of Richard Nixon or George Patton. Reader input is appreciated on this subject.

Fin.

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