On 11 April 1966, the USAF started using B-52D (more than likely) Stratofortresses as God and Boeing intended, striking targets in North Vietnam. Specifically hit was the Mu Gia Pass, which constituted an entry point for the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail. I think they would have been drawn from the 28th Bomb Wing, if my sources are right. These strikes were ordered by General William C. Westmoreland, with their targets being in the southernmost area of North Vietnam.

A number of B-52D units had been modified to the BIG BELLY standard, which gave them the ability to carry nearly 60,000 pounds of ordnance to targets in Southeast Asia. The raids against the Mu Gia Pass took place on 11 and 26 April, for a total of 44 sorties. Sorry, Charlie; death from above, baby!

I added A Collection of Thoughts to the blogroll a while back, because she's a gal who writes about AC-47s and B-52s. Any gal who's at home with a minigun-toting cargo plane or the most excellent conventional & nuclear bomber in all of history can't be bad, now can she?

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Miss Jennifer Martinez.

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The Lockheed P-38 Lightning last flown by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has been recovered from the Mediterranean Sea, positively identified, and will be placed on display at Marseille, in southern France.

Saint-Ex, as I first heard of him, was a French military pilot and writer active during World War II. He vanished on 31 July 1944, flying "one last mission", nighttime reconnaisance of German troop movements in the Rhone River Valley.

Why do I cover this? First, I'm a sucker for aviation history. Secondly, I try to be a literate man, and I generally focus my efforts in literature on things that I already like. Saint-Exupéry is an aviation author of note; therefore I ought to be reading his stuff. Besides, you can't like World War II aviation and not have heard of this guy.

Three little anecdotes or vignettes about Saint-Ex and me:

1. When I was a wee little nipper, I watched a lot of Nickelodeon. (Marc Summers' Double Dare was years in the future.) Included in this programming was something called The Little Prince, where a kid caught passing comets with a butterfly net and went to other worlds. I remember nothing else about it than that, but the source for this was none other than Saint-Exupéry.

2. I had been reading something on trial practice this past week, and a quote popped up: "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away." It is worth noting that the uncredited author was none other than Mr. Saint-Exupéry himself.

3. He's mentioned several times in one of my favorite books, Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Unfortunately, all I can find is the reference where Wolfe quotes him during the re-entry John Glenn's Friendship 7. I suppose it's just another one of those interesting coincidences that humans seem to have on a regular basis. Funny; I was reading The Right Stuff just this week.

I am glad that his aircraft was recovered, and I hope that the display in which it will be incorporated is a worthy one.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Comrade Commissar.

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I've been looking at pictures of Moqtada al-Sadr recently, and it occurred to me that he looks like an adult Eric Cartman. One association led to another, and I wound up wondering if the rotund youth---he's not much older than me---would break out and say,

"HEY! I am a mullah, and you will respect mah authoritah!"

I don't know if he's a mullah, an imam, or if he's like the Islamic Jesse Jackson, and frankly I don't care. I wonder if his madrasa yearbook had, "Most likely to attempt the establishment of an Islamic Republic of Iraq" under his picture.

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Allow me to quote General M.D. Meridius, RIA (ret.) at this point:

"At my signal, unleash Hell."

FALLUJAH, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Marines on Monday closed all roads into Fallujah, the site of last week's slayings of four U.S. civilian contractors and the horrific mutilations of their bodies. The Marines engaged in firefights inside and around the city, sources there said.

CNN reports that we have sustained a casualty---!@#$---and there are between five and seven Iraqi casualties. That's not a good enough kill ratio. I want twenty to one, or better. These vermin, or more accurately those who survive them, must understand that there will not be any further attacks such as the ones that claimed the lives of four private military contractors last week.

As for the people who dare slaughter our people, well then, the words of LCDR Anavel Gato will once again suffice: "DIE!" International law be hung; we've got an obligation to our people to live up to here, and that comes first. The "human rights establishment" of Europe can bellyache all it wants, but Americans can not and should not tolerate that sort of uncivilized violence against the remains of our people.

On a related note, Grim of Grim's Hall has pointed me to the legal definition of "mercenary", and I thank him for it. It came up in the discussion of the Kos thing, which I won't go into. I had my suspicions that "mercenary" was a defined term under the old traditions of war, and I am pleased to see that it does not apply to the individuals lost in Fallujah.¹ For further information, see Southern Appeal.

From the halls of Montezuma to the walls of Fallujah. Semper fidelis, Marines, and get even for our boys. Good luck, God bless, and good hunting.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Jonah Goldberg.

Now Playing: "The Battle", Hans Zimmer from the Gladiator OST.

¹ I have been told that a woman was included in the dead. As a good Southerner, color me outraged. There's no call for that kind of behavior and I'm hoping that we find someone to apply a little extra pain to.

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I've refrained from commentary on the loss of four private military contractors due to the fact that I've been trying to figure out what to say.

My initial reaction was just like everyone else, i.e. call the Stratofortresses from Diego Garcia, load 'em up with the Mark 82 500 pound bomb and send a three-ship cell in broad daylight to retaliate. That, or implement the Darth Sidious solution, which is summed up as, "Wipe them out. All of them."

This is, of course, a purely visceral and most unproductive response. I would also hate to have to explain support for such an action to a fellow named Jesus Christ, so that's the ultimate double whammy. It would also smack heavily of the German National Socialist response to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by British-backed Czech irregulars.¹ Hitler, enraged at this affront by the Czechs (the very nerve, killing the man sent to oversee their liquidation!) ordered the annihilation of the town of Lidice, right down to having it taken off of maps. If memory serves, their "crime" was being less than enthusiastic about the presence of the unsmiling men with the skull-and-crossbones on their hats and a hankering for violence.

I would prefer for the name of American forces to not be associated with Fallujah as was the German politico-military establishment with Lidice.

At the same time, the individuals who did this must die. Insofar as we can identify the guilty parties, they should be captured, marched out into a public place, and shot. An abject lesson must be taught: To kill Americans is to invite an unyielding and excruciatingly accurate retaliation, especially if you're stupid enough to talk to Sky News or whoever it was that taped this.

I would like to point out to the Iraqi man that claimed Fallujah was an American graveyard that perhaps his syntax is garbled and that his luck was with him. Much more of these kinds of actions, and the Americans may turn Fallujah into a graveyard, if not a giant glassy crater.

The important objective will be to carry out the lesson from two paragraphs up without killing non-combatants or Fallujahns who're willing to participate in the peaceful and pro-Western new Iraq. Hopefully, our people will retaliate at the time and the place of our choosing.

¹ SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich had been set up as the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (former Czechoslovakia, if I have my geography right) and was generally a man who deserved a far more brutal death than he received. He was Adolf Eichmann's boss, and participated at the Wannsee Conference, where it was decided that the Jews of Europe would be exterminated.

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I've found an account of a compiled military code of conduct, assembled from service experience in the Balkans upon the peacekeeping effort there.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to the blogosphere, for I no longer recall where I found the link to this. more...

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This started as a two-topic post that I've decided to split into two pieces (kind of like the Roman Empire's Western and Eastern divisions) due to the fact that I a) want the first piece out the door and b) haven't finished writing the second piece despite having several days to mull it over.

If I were in more of an irreverent mood, I would have titled this post "Nobody Does It Better", in a conscious nod to Carly Simon's schlocky (and double entendre-sporting) theme song for The Spy Who Loved Me. By the way, she's got a concert DVD out that dates from 1987 or so; it's inexpensive and is supposed to be pretty good. Got to buy that.

Anyways. Den Beste usually has some sort of phrase or section in his writings regarding the war on Islamists that gives me the Evil Calvin Grin. When I get a scanner or something, I'll show you exactly what that is. He's also able to invoke a "huh huh huh" on the order of Butt-head, and I thought I'd point out his latest success:

Nations which are weak or craven increase their chances of being targeted when they appease the Islamists. The Islamists don't seem to be seriously targeting the US any longer because they know that we'll fight back. After 9/11 and after months of sustained operations against Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's now clear that the US won't retreat because of such attacks. Instead, we respond violently to them, causing huge casualties to the attackers, in men lost and organizations obliterated and even nations captured. (Italics mine.)

I was instantly reminded of a quip I found in Harry Turtledove's The Guns of the South, made by a character, Piet Hardie. Hardie held views on racial relations that I found unacceptable, but that doesn't mean the author couldn't give him a good line. He speaks to a Federal army veteran and now slave that he's just purchased: "I can lick you any way you name: bare hands, axes, whips, guns, any way at all. Any time you want to try, you tell me, but you have your grave picked out beforehand."

I suppose that's why I understood President Bush's "Bring it on!" remark. Every time the al-Qaeda types or their cohorts in Iraq get together for a stand-up fight (i.e. force on force, not drive-by assassinations of missionaries, you dirtbags), they lose, and lose badly. We like those fights. Now, occasionally they get lucky and kill some of our people. This is, of course, regrettable. I would prefer that none of our people die in this annoying war. However, a man with a rifle, body armor, training, and comrades of like mind and circumstance is in a better position to defend himself than is a half-awake commuter on his way to the City of New York from the District of Columbia. Thus, I find that sending our troops into battle is preferable. And by the way, Godspeed. I pray every single night for your safety and for your swift & victorious return.

At any rate, we're probably pursuing the proper strategic doctrine. I use 'strategic' in what must be a simplistic understanding of a professional military meaning for the term: "[Strategy] is the area of the practical activity of the higher military and political leadership of the supreme command, and of the higher headquarters, that pertains to the art of preparing a country and the armed forces for war and conducting the war."¹

One can quibble about our operational level decisions such as Iraq. Since I'm more often than not the cold-eyed practitioner of realpolitik (helps that I'm not actually in a position of responsibility), I'll note that while we may have yet to see tremendous gain from inside Iraq, we have seen a positive external benefit in that Libya has decided to come clean. That by itself is almost worth the cost of the war. Crush one bully, and others may conform their conduct to the law, if you will.

When it is also considered that many millions of people no longer live under the boot of an odious SOB and will now have a chance at national self-determination, both the bottom line and the heart are satisified in terms of Iraq.

Second half coming on Saturday.

¹ Scott, ed. Soviet Military Strategy [1975], p. 11).

Posted by: Country Pundit at 10:57 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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And no, it's not "Let the Wookiee win", although my strategy could theoretically be compared to pulling peoples' arms from their sockets.

The Spanish electorate has demonstrated that you need less than a dozen or so bombs and 200 casualties to force them to the bombing party's will. Keep that in mind. So what? Well, perhaps we ought to lose track of a three-ship cell of B-52H Stratofortresses every so often. It appears that it only takes a few bombs to make the Spaniards cry 'no mas'; for the price of just a few Mark 82 500 pound bombs, we could make Madrid do whatever we wanted it to. Live-fire accidents and navigational errors happen all the time, don't you know?

"Madrid, Tehran, Mecca, they all look alike. Shaddup about being off-course and drop the bombs, will ya?" We can even get Slim Pickens or Powers Boothe & Rebecca DeMornay (!) to fly the lead Buff. We then of course issue the appropriate apologies---completely sincere, I assure you---and have a junior Administration official make some crack to the appropriate reporters that, "We took a cue from the Islamists and decided to demonstrate that the price of disobeying America was higher than the price of disobeying al-Qaeda."

When you consider that a three-ship cell of Stratofortresses carries in the neighborhood of 300 Mark 82s, we could put 20 bombs in each of the European Union countries and rule those lands forever, all in a single night and without refueling. Leave RAF Fairford before lunch and be back by supper with the whole of Europe in your hand!

World domination has never been easier.

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This is snipped from the preceding post in order to maintain the tone of the first.

If al-Qaeda did do it---still a possibility---then they've picked on the wrong people. If we assume that al-Qaeda is motivated by some sort of "anti-Crusader" mentality, then their action is somewhat rational but also kind of stupid.

What's rational? The Spanish are some of the last folks to have really given the Islamic/Moorish empire a bloody nose. Remember that as late as the 15th century, Spain was still possessed of a significant Islamic occupation presence. In fact, it would take until 1492 to complete the reconquista, the reconquest of Spain. For a brief capsule of that and the Alhambra of Granada, see here.

Ostensibly, the religious motivations for al-Qaeda would be avenging, (five hundred years later) the defeat of Islamic forces. At the same time, they haven't just tweaked the nose of the evil crusader country, they've hit a country that's got ruthless running through its history.

After all, it wasn't called the Spanish Inquisition for nothing. Pit and the pendulum, anyone? This is the country that coughed up Tomás de Torquemada. Given that this war against terror is one that is fought largely in the shadows, are you al-Qaeda men really sure you want your troops charging into that country? The land of Torquemada is also a country that has knitted into its cultural fabric the active enjoyment of a literal bloodsport, namely bullfighting.

I ask al-Qaeda again: Do you really want to mess with the guys who cleaned your clocks five hundred years ago, who produced a man whose name is synonymous with brutal torture, and who think a lot of ritualized slaughter? America's put a beating on al-Qaeda, but we've just got a penchant for porn and precision firepower.

Suppose al-Qaeda thinks it can take the Spanish in warfare and out-do them in brutality, slaughter, fire, whatever. That's nice, Osama. You've bagged about 200 people. Congratulations. The Spanish, on the other hand, pretty much laid waste to every indigenous population south of the Rio Grande and Florida, all for the greater glory of Spain, profit for the crown and self, and to save the souls of those Indians from the fires of Hell.¹ That, friends and neighbors, is destruction practiced as an art.

If given a choice between the all-stars of Islamic cruelty and the all-stars of Spanish conquistadors for the Brutality Bowl, I'll take Cortez & Company, thank you. These Spaniards'll tear you a couple of new orifices, right before they set fire to your flea-bitten hides, and all to the sights & sounds of flamenco performers. At this point for us, it's strictly business---for the Spaniards, it will be all personal.

Good luck and good hunting, Spain.

¹ And no, I'm not one of these indigenous-peoples whiners that considers Christopher Columbus the very devil of Hell. Besides, I'm more interested in what happened in 1607 at Jamestown.

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I am, of course, conscious of the attacks in Madrid. It's a nice-but-nasty city, one where your lungs will instantly know that you're not in America any more once you disembark from your plane.

As usual, I've got something to say about the whole deal:

I was listening to NPR this morning and some fellow---not your usual sandalista---suggested that the discovery of the van was possibly a ham-fisted attempt to shift blame. His primary reasons for saying this were twofold:
-The tapes found in the van were religious sermons that were readily available and were not 'propaganda'.
-The ETA may not be monolithic; see some marketplace car bombing in Northern Ireland by the 'Real' IRA back in the late 1990s.

I agree with this man's reservations. Before I go further, let me say that I know precious little about the Basque struggle for independence, and was surprised to know that the French were in the fight against the ETA et cetera. That is not a back-of-the-hand against Paris; I had thought that the Basque question was solely a domestic Spanish issue. Learn something every day, y'do.

The point about the tapes is interesting to me. I would expect religious material in the hands of men about to commit terrorist acts would be something on the order of "DEATH TO THE ZIONIST PIGS AND THEIR CRUSADER ALLIES, ALLAH COMMANDS IT AND YOU WILL GET 72 COPIES OF SALMA HAYEK IF YOU DO THIS!" Conversely, I would not expect them to have tapes of a run-of-the-mill imam reading the five pillars of Islam or talking about how going to Mecca isn't really required if you can't make it, that Allah in his munificence would understand.

Of course, if it were a sophisticated operation by al-Qaeda forces, there might be incentives to try and cover their trail. I can think of a few, but I'll leave it to them to figure it out. No freebies, you dirtbags.

Secondly, the point about ETA factionalism is almost always true when you're dealing with politico-terrorist organizations. Invariably, there's always someone in the ranks who isn't happy that you've stopped bombing and started balloting, regardless of whether the goals of the group are being advanced. Some organizations probably kill dissenters like that, but they can't catch every one.

This problem even extended to the German National Socialists. Ernst Rohm, the leader of the Sturmabteilung (AKA the 'SA'), become dissatisfied with the actions of Adolf Hitler because the little corporal wasn't doing enough to further the socialist goals Rohm had embraced. Rohm had thought that he and his organization were the vanguard of the national socialist revolution, and thus wanted to be a big dog in the NSDAP's arrangements if not the big dog.

Of course, Hitler didn't like competition. Rohm made some public remarks---something about either continuing the original Nazi revolution or having another one---that got ol' Adolf angry, and so Rohm & Co. were purged in "The Night of the Long Knives", 10 June 1934.

That example is listed to show that even some of the best run groups of thugs have their problems and their "mob" to satisfy, unless you kill them. Given the probable resemblance of the ETA to every other politico-terror group, the aforementioned splinter possibility is given credence by me.

But what of the ETA disavowals? The BBC & NPR reported that 'reliable ETA contacts' (not their phraseology) had disavowed the attacks. That in and of itself is not conclusory. I see two possibilities:

a) They didn't do it, and were wanting to their story out in front that while "Yes, we kill Spaniards in the name of Basque independence, we didn't do this because we're not stupid." This would be intelligent damage control, because the ETA's name came up first in public discussion, sort of the ready wrongdoer. If the public got it in their minds that the ETA was responsible, the bombing Basques might get a visit from the Spanish military that otherwise would not have been made.

b) They did do it, and wanted to cover that up for whatever reason, like too much success. "Oops, we've killed too many." At this point, the ETA leadership would want to distance itself because it would not serve their purposes. It would attract the sort of rage that 11 September got from us. The ETA would like fear and weakness; instead, they would get fear backed by rage, which tends to lead to slaughter of the bad guys. If I were an ETA commander and we'd ordered the strike, I'd do my darnedest to back away. I'd hate to have the Spanish army turned loose on me with any remaining gloves off. Similarly, it would require carefully orchestrated political footwork in order to manipulate the circumstances to ETA's advantage at this point.

At the same time, it would be an interesting way to get on top of the Spanish terror heap; perhaps the ETA saw a useful opportunity in the 'failed' op to stick al-Qaeda with the blame and get them annihilated, so that everyone remembers the ETA and doesn't get distracted with a bunch of Arabs. I suppose it would be something on the order of, "We'll keep the license on killing Spaniards, thank you."

Further ruminations may follow. My second point in this post is now going to be a separate post, due to its less analytical content. The people of Spain are in my prayers.

UPDATE: Matthew Stinson's remarks and round-the-web research are here; go read them.

The Swanky Conservative has found this site about the ETA.

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Hrrm. I don't know how old this is, but CVN 77 will be the George H.W. Bush. This comes from the January 2004 Combat Aircraft: The International Journal of Combat Aviation, a magazine published in Britain.

The keel for CVN 77 was laid at Northrop Grumman's Newport News, Virginia shipyard on 06 September 2003.

The former President may have been a naval aviator, but I wouldn't have named a carrier for him at this point. He's still alive, for pete's sake. Enh. It's not like I have influence over naming policy, but I would have preferred they name CVN 77 after one of the WWII carriers. (Admittedly, you'd have to steal from the Ticonderoga-class missile cruisers if you weren't careful, but they're supposed to be named after cities anyways...)

Sigh.

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To give you folks a break from the torrent of CNN articles I'm linking to tonight, here's something that's military in nature. Greyhawk of The Mudville Gazette is doing yeoman service in keeping the fire on LT J.F. Kerry, USN (ret.) and for that I'm grateful. I'd like to see someone beat that Massachusetts Merovingian with a clue-by-four, so Greyhawk is performing a useful service.

At the same time, he brings us some news of some nitwit soldier in Germany. I have nothing to say about the case, because I know absolutely nothing about the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is the system servicemen such as this would be tried under. (At least you're honest. You don't even know anything about the Federal Rules of Evidence or of Civil Procedure, either. --Ed.)

What got my attention was a post in the comments by a fellow named Sharps Shooter:

On the other hand, I had a BIG problem with hard liquor as a 19-20 year-old in Korea, on an island.

So bad that I was singled out -with maybe 5 others- for a short, blunt talk with our CO. Scared sh-tless, I stood at attention while he asked,
"Specialist, you make $265 per month, is that correct?" (Yes, Sir!)
"And club record show you've been drinking more than $220 of that every month, is that correct?"
(.....Sir, yes, Sir.)
"Do you have a problem, Specialist?" (..Yes, Sir.)
"Are you getting rid of this problem, Specialist?"
(Yes, Sir.)
Quietly, then, he asked, "Do you need any help, Son?" And I responded that I would deal with it, immediately.

I never drank again. If I can do it, Glick can do it. I've been dry for 36 years now.

I'm no expert on how one manages a military, but the CO's manner earned an involuntary nod, one affirming it as "the way things ought to be". Give a stern on-the-record admonishment, and then offer support if it's desired/needed. For some reason, I like that. Congratulations to Sharps Shooter for beating the bottle for 36 years running.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 10:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This is several days if not weeks behind the news cycle, but it's cool enough to warrant me posting here. The grounds for this exception are my interest in Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and things related to his out-of-the-ordinary way of doing things.

I'd hate to work for him, but I'd like to have him working for me.

Anyways, from POE News, The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique.

Your humble correspondent is known to use the White Axe Hand and the Crouching Tiger, while learning the Quacking Duck Hand.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 10:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Greyhawk over at The Mudville Gazette has a post detailing how John Kerry's correspondence to a single voter in the early 1990s managed to have him on both sides of supporting Operation DESERT STORM. (Admittedly, that sort of political reversal isn't outside the realm of legitimate possibility, but Kerry goes from 'no war' to 'I support the troops' within the space of ten days, which I find a bit fishy.)

The best part of the amusing article is this quote:

By the way, Senator Kerry, as a Vietnam Veteran with a Blog, is eligible to join MilBlogs. I wonder if he will? Speaking of which, how come no left wing blogs link as "Friends of MilBlogs?" I thought they supported the troops?

Maybe just some of the troops?

Remember, these folks only support the troops when they're shooting their officers, or otherwise behaving in the manner that Leon Trotsky would find appropriate. That, or testifying on Capitol Hill as to gross atrocities by American forces that apparently never happened. Wait, I may be on to something here; that must explain why Jane Fonda (who I'll admit was a looker at some point) was tolerant of that ugly-mugged Kerry.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Swanky Conservative for the link.

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Out there somewhere in the ethereal and eldritch strands of the Internet, there's a photo of a young George W. Bush around the cockpit of a Convair F-102A Delta Dagger. From what I understand, young George was training to fly these things in the Texas Air National Guard.

Much has been made over John Kerry's Vietnam service, and much has been said about George W. Bush not being in Vietnam. The bottom line there is that I don't care. If Bush did his job, then yay for him. If he didn't, I'm still stuck voting for him because I'd rather frog-march someone over broken glass than vote for Kerry.

However, not much has been said about the F-102, one of my more favorite Century Series (Whaddya mean? You like them all. --Ed.) aircraft. Anyways, here's a couple of tidbits about the "Deuce", as it was called by her crews.

1. The Delta Dagger was an all-weather interceptor, remarkably unsuited for tactical air missions (i.e. light bombing and close-air support). It was armed solely with missiles of two sorts and rockets. The missiles were usually a mix of Hughes AIM-4A/AIM-4E Falcon semi-active radar homing missiles and AIM-4C/AIM-4F infra-red homing missiles, and the rockets were 2.75 inch Folding Fin Aircraft Rockets.

2. The vast majority of the 875 Daggers built served in the USAF's Air Defense Command, which kept on the lookout for Soviet bombers. Thus, they served at bases within the United States for the most part, but several squadrons were sent to places like Keflavik in Iceland, Bitburg in West Germany (wow, haven't written that in a long time) and a couple other European countries.

3. Daggers saw service in Vietnam, with several PACAF units being deployed to Thailand and the Republic of Vietnam from 1962 until withdrawal in 1969. They were tasked to prevent the North Vietnamese air force from doing something stupid, but also rode shotgun on B-52 raids up North. In this capacity, the two-seat trainer variant, the TF-102A, was also employed.

4. The 509th FIS reportedly lost one to a MiG-21 on 3 February 1968, somewhere in Route Pack IV, the only known air-to-air engagement by the F-102A.

5. Despite being a pure interceptor, the USAF managed to get some air-to-ground use out of them, courtesy of Project STOVEPIPE. Aircraft would fly over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the RVN and use their IR-guided missiles to hunt for campfires. If they found a heat source, they fired. Not really a tremendous threat, but Charlie's evening bowl of rice and his bong would be upset by the arrival of a missile. Given that the Falcon's IR seeker had a very short operational life once started on the launch rail, I'm not entirely sure how effective a tactic this was. I'm also told that the pilots would use their radar to try and find targets; if they could lock a target up, they'd fire off a SARH Falcon.

Later efforts saw them using the 2.75-in. FFARs in daylight attacks, which had to be amusing.

6. Many F-102As were expended as drones to support USAF live fire missile drills in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.

Obligatory Bush content: If W's TANG unit was equipped with Delta Daggers, then it's extremely unlikely that he would have gone to Vietnam, and so therefore hush about him potentially ducking the call.

Much credit to Joe Baugher for his entry on the F-102.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:28 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I was reading Chessie: The Railroad Kitten by Thomas W. Dixon, Jr. earlier tonight, when I found something that I thought was worth posting here, sort of a "I concur" thing.

The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway ("George Washington's Railroad") had as its mascot a small female kitten known as Chessie. In 1937, Chessie was joined by Peake, billed as "Chessie's Old Man". When America entered World War II, Peake's illustrations started including a garrison cap or some other indicator that he too was off to war with the men of America.

The 1944 C&O calendar depicted Peake reading a letter from Chessie; text as follows: "Dear Peake: We eagerly await your return from war and here at home we're doing all we can to hasten that day. It's the one thought uppermost in our minds. -- Your loving Chessie."

It may sound mushy or trite, but I agree with the C&O's mascot. I want our boys (and girls, !@#%) back home and I reckon a lot of good people are doing what they can to hasten the return of our troops.

It's fair to ask, "This isn't World War II, and nobody's employed on the production lines making B-24 Liberators in 12 hours or so or Liberty ships in a day; moreover, what're we supposed to do?" The answer to that is simple, although perhaps a little less than immediately obvious. What civilians in 2004 America can do is simply support the troops.

It sounds trite, hackneyed, or perhaps overplayed. Lord knows that a lot of left-leaning types like to begin a waffle phrase with "I support the troops, but..." Never mind that; neither those words nor those who speak them are important, but they can have an effect over time. Therefore, the patriotic citizen must practice quiet resolve to defeat those things things which would lead to problems with bringing the boys home.

So, what do we do? Since Vietnam, it has been clear that the national will is tremendously important to the success of any American martial effort. We cannot be defeated in the field, but America stands vulnerable elsewhere. Allow me to present several things that may help the citizen to repel attacks on the national will.

First: Understand that our people can't come home until the job is done. This is a simple thing to comprehend, and it is necessary. The road to the return of forces from overseas first requires that victory must be achieved.

Second: Understand that the job will require total victory. James Woolsey said in a recent speech that there would be no Islamist Gorbachev, someone who sees the light and comes to make peace in the name of radical Islam. Rather, the Islamists will continue their attacks where possible, and their number will increase. The only way to prevent this is to demonstrate utterly without equivocation that to plot violence against the United States is to a) fail miserably and b) die trying in the attempt.

Third: Understand that enforcing failure and death to our enemies is a messy thing. We will, by and large, take many Islamist lives in this conflict. Our forces are heavily armed, highly trained, and the beneficiaries of trillions of dollars in research, development, and procurement. There are times when we will make mistakes, however. Accidents will happen. Innocents will die, and our people will die. That is an unfortunate reality that can only be controlled, never eliminated.

Islamist dead are not to be mourned for anything other than the fact that a human life was needlessly wasted in pursuit of a gruesome and hideous agenda. As for our people, honor their sacrifice by staying the course and resolving to make their deaths meaningful. At some level, our dead perished so that we might not bow to the Islamist or to his allies. Yielding to the demands of those who say that America deserves the rage of the Islamist or that we shouldn't fight evil does exactly what our lost soldiers fought against.

Fourth: Do not be afraid to stand up for your freedom and your way of life. When someone says that America should not be committed to a war on terrorists, remind them that these Islamists came looking for us. Remind them that they want our way of life destroyed, the very way of life that allows you and the other individual to hold and express differing views. Courteously confront those who espouse the negative view, and make them defend their assertions. You may not win over that individual, but others might see and hear, and come away with a better understanding of your viewpoint.

Fifth: Support your soldiers. What does that mean? When you see a man or woman in our country's uniform, thank them for their service. Tell them that you're proud of their successes and that they make your safety possible. It should build morale among the troops, and that's a crucial thing.

That's all I've got; it's probably simplistic, but I wanted to make it easy. I've often asked myself what I can do for the furtherance of the war effort and the nation's legitimate war aims, and that's the best I've come up with to date. And yes, I want our people home. The perfect sound bite for this comes from Apocalypse Now, where Robert Duvall's Colonel Bill Kilgore says, "I want my people out of there now!" He's talking about wounded men, but I think it applies here as well. I care for our folks, and I want them back. I'd also rather them come home after a job well done with no more major needs to revisit the question.

Funny; all this was inspired for posting by an advertising calendar's illustration of a cat from sixty years ago.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This got sent to me in the 14 January 2004 issue of The Federalist, a conservative e-mail newsletter, and bears reposting for the heck of it:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me because, as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." -- The Honorable D.H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.

It's a good quote.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:33 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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On September 14 2003, the USAF's aerial demonstration team, the Thunderbirds, lost a General Dynamics F-16C Fighting Falcon during a demonstration at Mountain Home AFB in Idaho.

Captain Chris Stricklin was attempting to perform a split-S when he basically ran out of altitude. He ejected and survived without serious injury. The F-16C was destroyed, and its loss was attributed to pilot error. Subsquently, Captain Stricklin has been reassigned to Washington, D.C., working the halls of the Pentagon.

The good men of Boots and Sabers have posted in-cockpit video; find it in their initial here. Additional information can be found here in the F-16.net story on the final report.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 02:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I found this on CNN today; it finally "proves" the old saw I'd heard about Dr. Henry A. Kissinger making some thinly-veiled remark to someone (probably an OPEC minister) that the West would not for long tolerate the oil embargos of the 1970s. The British intelligence apparat seems to have been concerned that President Nixon would order some sort of invasion of the Middle East, to secure the oil reserves there and to get them out of the hands of the OPEC magnates.

According to these documents---which I intend to try and track down---the Brits determined that we were right angry over the embargo (y'think?) and that we could do pretty good by bagging Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi.

Leave it to President Nixon to take a bold stance in dealing with Arab perfidy. I wasn't alive during the oil embargo of 1973, so I don't remember anything about it. This sort of reputation is one reason I like Richard Nixon. Although the existence of the 'madman theory' has been reportedly discredited, it is good when those who want to oppose you have to fear you. It doesn't do much to embolden OPEC if they have to worry about American paras falling in on them after a production cut and a price hike.

Anyways.

Admittedly, now that I think about it, we're already in Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, and I bet the Brits would swap Abu Dhabi for Iraq pretty easily. Heh heh heh, the Nixon Administration proves its presience again! That article a couple of months ago comparing Nixon to Bush seems to have been born out after all.

I can now feel better about having Bush as the President for the next four years. It's fun using slogans like, "Re-elect the President" or "Now, more than ever." That just warms my evil little Republican operative's heart.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, not really. I do expect that the sovereign leader of Libya will remain a devotee of the Islamic faith. Nevertheless, the Colonel's done something that I regard as intelligent.

Several points:

1. The Country Pundit is glad this worked without (publicly-known) direct military action. We're a little busy elsewhere, and don't need to be getting too many irons in too many fires.

2. TCP likes sanctions as part of a daily breakfast an overall diversified portfolio of diplomatic options that starts with "The United States would like to express its displeasure..." and stops just short of the shiny things in the silos.

3. Bouncing off of the point above, I'm not entirely sure when the relevant sanctions were put into place, and I'm not sure what they were put into place for. These sanctions things do, unfortunately, take a long time and you're never guaranteed that they'll do much other than enrich the local dictator and irritate the people he's ruling.

4. It's good that the United States is ready and willing to cut deals when the opportunity arises. The 'no regime change' for Libya in exchange for whatever it is exactly that the Colonel's giving up is a good deal, and we've made it before, with Castro. Leaving that nitwit in power down in Cuba was probably a decent deal in exchange for getting the Soviet missiles out of there. Admittedly, it wasn't too good for the Cuban people, but that can't be helped.

5. Both withdrawals of sanctions seem to have been intelligent moves. Call it the two-carrot approach if you will; the problem is that this doesn't always work, and so you have to keep a big stick laying around.

6. Hopefully the State Department had a positive hand in this, and can start pulling its weight instead of being like a dead-in-train locomotive.

7. Also, this may set a good example: Work with us, and you stay in power. Keep up your NBC program (or keep acting like you've got one) and we bring the hurt. Crude, not particularly subtle, but probably effective.

In summary: I'm glad this worked and so forth. I'm hopeful that "Libya" can stop being short-hand for "state sponsor of terrorism" and can move towards the group of nations who at least act like they've got a measure of civilization about them. Hooray for Washington and for London.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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