Throwing a dart at a list of "journalists" couldn't have yielded a worse choice!

Arkin is talking out of his ass.

Might as well have the old hagster of the WH press corps (corpse?), Helen Thomas write it.

Mr. Arkin’s book, “Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War,” will be published this month by the Air University Press, based at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. It is expected to influence Air Force strategy and teaching.

This needs to go backwards immediately. Who is the hack/team of hacks who brought in Arkin for this study? We need some names.

I'm beginning to believe in Alien abductions. How else can you explain the disappearance of all of the sane people?

Air power should only be used to drop balloons and candy.

Much like our universities, liberals had made great headway in becoming relevant in our military commissions too.

Let this remove all doubt...

Why does this happen? It really makes my brain itch! How does the Bush admin hope to ever get to the truth when they allow fools like this guy to writer reports?

Israel bombed too much and bombed the wrong targets

I agree with that statement - Israel should have bombed the hell out of Syria for arming hezbollah in the first place. The little nuclear facility they were working on would have been a bonus target.

In many cases, the senior officers have had the full PC indoctrination and start to think like true moonbats. Wouldn't be surprised at all if some senior AF general picked Arkin personally for the study.

CHARLES:

Arkin is contradicting himself. Look at what he wrote about the Israel/Hezbollah war in these two postings.

[Link: blog.washingtonpost.com...]

[Link: blog.washingtonpost.com...]

There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and there is no Izvestia in Pravda" ("There is no truth in News, and there is no news in Truth."

You just have to read between the lines when you read that report.

So whats new? Condi at the State Dept, Scum bags running the Empire st Bldg. Arabists in perpetual control of STate. The
CIA after the Bush Admin?
/we're going dn the tubes.

Why is the Bush administration apparently so clueless about who these people are? From inviting CAIR to the dais, to the 'religion of peace' nonsense, to all kinds of appointments made seemingly without background checks, it seems as if the people running things are either ignorant, not very bright, or perhaps even facilitators for the bad guys.

This makes no sense, no sense at all. Who at the Pentagon hates the military? This is sickening.

Later, Lizards.

This is what Arkin said on his blog:

Fact: Hezbollah operated from southern Lebanese villages and towns, virtually owning their controlled areas. They managed to fire almost 4,000 rockets into Israel and another 1,000 anti-tank missiles against Israeli forces on the border and in southern Lebanon. This means hundreds if not thousands of combatants, scores if not hundreds of launch and supply points. To say Hezbollah was nowhere near villages where the Israelis killed civilians or that Israeli attacks were unconnected to Hezbollah is false.

Israel unleashed a pre-planned military campaign to destroy Hezbollah. I believe it used archaic justification to define legitimate action against Hezbollah, and Israel's reasoning in attacking Hezbollah "infrastructure" -- particularly in Beirut -- was sloppy. But Israel didn’t bomb the Lebanese electrical power grid, Lebanese water or sewage infrastructure, Lebanon’s “refinery,” hospitals or schools. Yes some were damaged in in the fighting, but the fact is, there was some attempt to discriminate, Lebanon wasn’t systematically destroyed.

The Army and Marine Corps started down this path with their stupid, politically correct Field Manual 3-24. David Petraeus trashed most of it and had it rewritten. Take heart--the same could happen to this joke.

Hm. Every time I go away for bit, Charles adds a new feature...

Considerably fewer negative ratings these days, apparently.

Ha.

re: #18 Cognito

Hm. Every time I go away for bit, Charles adds a new feature...

Considerably fewer negative ratings these days, apparently.

Ha.

I think we all got smarter is why.

;-)

It is being far too discriminate in targeting that prolongs wars.

The enemies fighters have to believe that their own families are at risk from collateral damage.

Israel's pinpoint 'targeted assassinations' of terrorists let the population carry on as if nothing happened.

My guess would be that this waste of taxpayer dollars is being done as a political favor for the likes of Merril McPeak and his band of toads.

I'd go to Alan Arkin for military analysis before I would this clown.

Hmmnn. I wonder if Iowahawk will repost his debate with retired US Marine Corps LTC Mike Williams: "Should Washington Post Military Analyst William Arkin Be Beaten Like the Repulsive Sack of S**t He Is?"

Heh.

Send in the clones...
Vaccine company on verge of breakthrough print this article

Results have been extremely promising in clinical trials involving mice genetically cloned to replicate humans.

Scientists initially injected the mice with cancer cells, which formed huge tumours and made them very ill. Within 14 days of receiving the vaccine, each one became tumour-free and perfectly healthy. The mice were re-injected and no new tumours formed. The trials were repeated three times with the same results.

Science!

shmu (#21),

Just what the fuck has that got to do with any of this?

While they're at it, why don't they ask Cindy Sheehan to do a study on military recruiting?

BHG

#23 JammieWearingFool 10/14/07 9:54:58 am reply quote report 0

I'd go to Alan Arkin for military analysis before I would this clown.

"Please to clear the strits - emergency"

re: #25 Killgore Trout

Send in the clones? I'll say! If we can get better results from drug-testing that way, I'll donate my spare bedroom to the cause.

Thanks Charles.

That crap was getting really old.

#25 Killgore Trout 10/14/07 9:55:51 am reply quote report 1

Send in the clones...
Vaccine company on verge of breakthrough print this article

Results have been extremely promising in clinical trials involving mice genetically cloned to replicate humans.
Scientists initially injected the mice with cancer cells, which formed huge tumours and made them very ill. Within 14 days of receiving the vaccine, each one became tumour-free and perfectly healthy. The mice were re-injected and no new tumours formed. The trials were repeated three times with the same results.

Science!

Yeah, baby!

/Boo,hoo, shmu go by by!

shmu
This user is blocked.

Thank you, Charles!

re: #18 Cognito

Hm. Every time I go away for bit, Charles adds a new feature...

Considerably fewer negative ratings these days, apparently.

Ha.

Although if you go one thread down, someone get negated by about 7 last time I looked. Here's the comment. This is better, this way.

Nice coding, Charles, btw.

This book sounds like a dud.

He was great in the 'Catch-22' movie, however.

re: #29 squarepeg

Unfortunately, most of the advances are being pioneered in Canada, Europe and Israel. Chimeras, stem cells, and I think cloning is more difficult here in the US.

#33

Although if you go one thread down, someone get negated by about 7 last time I looked. Here's the comment. This is better, this way.

Nice coding, Charles, btw.

Heh. The commenter's screen name is Deaf Dog.

...your tax dollars at work.

re: #33 EC Marm

re: #18 Cognito

Hm. Every time I go away for bit, Charles adds a new feature...

Considerably fewer negative ratings these days, apparently.

Ha.

Although if you go one thread down, someone get negated by about 7 last time I looked. Here's the comment. This is better, this way.

Nice coding, Charles, btw.

Thanks. Gave me the opportunity to ding someone and see it how works. Down to -9 now.

re: #32 NY Nana

#26 Geeps

Sorry, shmu can't answer you. Pity. ;)

33 EC Marm 10/14/07 9:59:22 am reply quote report 0

re: #18 Cognito

Hm. Every time I go away for bit, Charles adds a new feature...

Considerably fewer negative ratings these days, apparently.

Ha.

Although if you go one thread down, someone get negated by about 7 last time I looked. Here's the comment. This is better, this way.

Nice coding, Charles, btw.

Dumb comment, crappy spelling - should have been more than -7 !

Well, at least it's just a study and not a field manual. If he's going to write anti-military crap in any case, let the Air Force pick his topic. Study away, Mr. Arkin! We'll fetch you from your basement when we think the streets are safe again.

Charles: It is too early on a peaceful Sunday for all these threads about liberal idiots. These threads are making me sarcastic. I feel like saying, "I feel the CIA was responsible for the deaths of all the dinosaurs!" Thus, having this disconcerting feeling, my hypothesis must be true! Thus, William Arkin is probably right about everything in the whole flocking Universe!"

I have to go read some Hitchens for awhile and chill. These threads are making my low blood pressure approach the 110/70 range and my face feel flushed!

ot: lgf has been running great, did you switch to this new system charles? ;)
[Link: photos.napalm.net...]

re: #33 EC Marm

I saw that.

I like this way better, too. Gives the ratings system at least a little bit of heft. Honestly, previously I just regarded "dings" as silly. They may have provided a useful function to Charles, so I understand why he created the system, but they reflected little of the actual value of any particular comment.

Then again, I'm saying that from the position of someone who had a permanent "-2" attached behind his name...

What this sadly shows is that even our military has become contaminated by the internal cancer of neo-Marxist fascism. When I read that our military academies import "sensitivity training" "re-education facilitators" for any slight offense of political correctness, I cringe.

I once thought hard science would withstand this subversion by ideology. Wrong. Gore gets a Nobel Prize for his self-serving idiocies - a mutual hand-job inside the self-congratulatory Leftist echo-chamber. All that award proves (again) is that the European intelligentia is lost.

If our military succumbs to this sort of subversion, we are finally and totally lost.

This blindness by the Air Force to incursions by the enemy within is frightening.

I see the Schmu joined his sibling Isadore in LGF hell.

Bush admin's 'peace conference' to blow up, it would seem.

Good.

#41 squarepeg 10/14/07 10:03:49 am reply quote report 0

Well, at least it's just a study and not a field manual. If he's going to write anti-military crap in any case, let the Air Force pick his topic. Study away, Mr. Arkin! We'll fetch you from your basement when we think the streets are safe again.

Reference was to Alan Arkin in The Russians are Coming - loved his Norwigin accent.

I approve of the Arkin choice.

/Dan Ra^ther

re: #48 debutaunt

Reference was to Alan Arkin in The Russians are Coming - loved his Norwigin accent.

Actually no--but I'll agree if it makes me appear more clever.

re: #33 EC Marm It's now -10 and climbing falling fast!

re: #44 Cognito
It's going to interesting, that's for sure. I dinged myself down on a vacuous comment I made just as a test, and someone pinged me back up to 0. I might make fewer comments in support of someone now, though. It's easier just to ping 'em a plus.

Nothing like sunlight to bleach this stuff out.

And, the second thing to notice? How wrapped up the academics are, when it comes to getting grants.

Most of that crap is not even read!

Oh, this one will get read, now!

And, it will look like the nobel pieces given to algore.

Getting awards, financial and otherwise, is one way to get Americans to PAY ATTENTION!

And, there's nothing wrong with that.

We shouldn't be surprised that fools like Arkin get an audience with the USAF. We have a populace that believes 1) the most important thing in war is to not inadvertantly civilians, and 2) that its a trivial thing somene else should go quickly take care of, so as to not interrupt coverage of oj or paris. And to think this is on a rhino's watch.

re: #52 EC Marm "I might make fewer comments in support of someone now, though. It's easier just to ping 'em a plus."
If by that you mean you have nothing of substance to add to that post, I'd agree. But I hope folks won't take the "easy" way out and rather than add to or "flesh out" a comment, they only just give 'em a plus.

re: #51 realwest

re: #33 EC Marm It's now -10 and climbing falling fast!

I just went back and looked again, Charles is a coding maniac, the names report in alphabetical order! That's borderline obsessive compulsive. :~)

You do have to wonder when you read crap like this if men like Rumsfield, Cheney, Bush, Petraeus, Pace, and a host of others are so busy combating horseshit within the ranks that they have been unfairly labeled as incompetent even amongst allies.

It would be really difficult to be a CEO of a company nominated to improve profitability when a 1/3 of your employees were actively pursuing trying to undermine the books.

Just a thought...

re: #54 Gadfly

You forgot Britney and Lindsey!

re: #52 EC Marm

I dunno. I'm a little bit ambivalent. (Although, can you be adamantly ambivalent?)

I never used the ratings system, except once when I accidently clicked it. It was an "up" rating for Pat, so I was fine with it. ;)

re: #56 EC Marm Alphabetical order? ROTFLMAO! That's a pretty neat trick - assuming Charles has invented a code that does that and doesn't do it "by hand"!

This is symptomatic of a much larger problem. The problem ISN"T that we allow one Soros-funded moonbat or another to have some position of influence (although that clearly is a mistake). The larger problem is that we do not have a consistent coherent strategy that identifies and opposes the ideology that confronts us. Mark Steyn identifies this absence and summarizes the major failings on our part that enable the Arkins of the West as well as the Islamic advances throughout the world.

By the way, I'll bet (2-cents)that the Winograd Commissioners are "diapering up." They went after Olmert. They didn't reach their target.

Could be they'll bomb, too. Since they're terrified, now, about their "final" report. Because? Olmert was supposed to be long gone.

And, Israelis are actually getting good at reading the hez'bulla inspired bullshit.

Oh, in sales, when you close, there's an old adage: He who speaks after closing, loses the sale.

Olmert's not gonna lose. Nor will he tell people (until his memoirs come out in fifty years; the pressures the saud's exerted on Bush. Through both gates and baker.

Not to lose, Bush keeps his mouth closed tight.

re: #61 salt1907

and that is exactly what one of the POTUS's duties is.

Well, it could have been even worse. They could have picked Ted Turner.

re: #64 ploome hineni

re: #59 Cognito

I seem to have lost my 'fan'

Ha.

Heck, I had a whole fan club, but they've apparently refocused their affections on some other Tiger Beat heartthrob.

OT: As your meaningless gesture of sanity for the day, turn this Al-gore poll from purple to red.

Scroll down a little and find it on the left-hand side.

re: #11 davesax

CHARLES:

Arkin is contradicting himself. Look at what he wrote about the Israel/Hezbollah war in these two postings.

[Link: blog.washingtonpost.com...]

[Link: blog.washingtonpost.com...]

This is an EXCELLENT post! There's even better out there, though. And, I'd recommend people going to MICHAEL TOTTEN's site. He was in Beirut, to write about that summer's Israeli "excursion." NOW? He's in Ramadi. What impressed him most; and he puts up the photographs to prove it, is that American fire power; to get rid of Al Qaeda in Ramadi, PULVERIZED sections of the city, so it doesn't only look like a parking lot, it looks like airplane runways. Whole swaths of blocks, not even rubble anymore. Cleaned up of rubble. No safe place for the terrorists to hide.

Halutz paid a very heavy price, in Israel, for the over-confidence in air power. Today? You see a lot more infiltrations with personnel wearing disguises. ANd, picking up assorted terrorists. Arriving on donkey carts. Blending in. Looking like "grocers."

Will Halutz ever regain his reputation? Didn't Ehud Barak just retrieve his? Didn't Arik Sharon leave on a high note? Israeli politics, when it mixes things up, is a game for heavy-weights, only.

NOW, just to repeat. If this is supposed to be a schmear job against the Israelis, there are REAL PHOTOS out there, with commentary, about what REAL DAMAGE looks like; when our American military set its mind to it.

Check it out.

War Crime!

Afghans Accuse US Troops of Burning Qur’an

The protesters alleged coalition forces had torn and burned a Qur’an copy during an overnight raid in which they had arrested four men. The reporter saw torn pages of the Muslim holy book in the village of Kodu, which is about 20 kilometers south of the provincial capital Asadabad.

The owner of the house where two men were arrested said the soldiers had burst into his house in the early hours of the morning and gone through his books. “They tied up and took two of my sons with them,” the man, Char Gul, said. “They went through our books, spread them on the floor. They tore and set ablaze a Holy Qur’an and they took another Qur’an with them.”

How would this sell in Dearborn?

Koran Printed Pork Rinds

NEW and IMPROVED! Be the first on your block to treat your Muslim friends to the newest taste sensation! Study the Holy verses of Mohammad (may bees piss upon him) as you chow down on some of the crunchiest treats to break a Ramadan fast you've ever had.

PORK, the other white meat!

9 out of 10 Mullahs agree, new Koranic Pork Rinds can't be beat!

How about a response from (soon to be former) Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne? Some enterprising reporter should be able to ring him up and have his story on this in time for this evenings 6 PM news.

re: #65 scaramouche

Well, it could have been even worse. They could have picked Ted Turner.

Or they could have commissioned Carter to do a study on...well...anything really.

I am sincerely hoping that this is the Air Force's efforts to fund openly contrarian views to a main study, and not something that they are going to swallow whole. Are there other studies along the same topic other than this? That's the tell.

If not, who's the fool that ordered this one up?

re: #25 Killgore Trout

Send in the clones...
Vaccine company on verge of breakthrough print this article

Results have been extremely promising in clinical trials involving mice genetically cloned to replicate humans.Scientists initially injected the mice with cancer cells, which formed huge tumours and made them very ill. Within 14 days of receiving the vaccine, each one became tumour-free and perfectly healthy. The mice were re-injected and no new tumours formed. The trials were repeated three times with the same results.

Science!

Hmmm, I notice that the followers of the prophet for profit didn't invent this stuff in either Egypt, Lebanon, evil house of saud, Jordan, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, etc. Could it have something to do with the mindset of the people living in that area?

By bombing too many targets of questionable importance for its aims, and not explaining why it bombed what it did, Israel lost the war for public opinion

Yet hamas, fatah, al-qaeda, et al can bomb indiscriminately targets of vital importance (or just buses full of children) without explaining themselves and yet it is the US and Israel that will continue to lose the war for public opinion.

/The deck is stacked- *spit*

Air Force Lunacy:

If you haven't read Sean Naylor's NOT A GOOD DAY TO DIE, please do so now. We will wait. But then read this interview with Mr. Naylor ant AEI, the American Enterprise Institute. Here's a question from an Army guy about the Air Force's study of their own less-than-stellar performance in Operation Anaconda:

QUESTION: Richard Stewart, U.S. Army Center, Military History.

We were talking--plenty of blame to go around, certainly, for the Army on this, but there's some for the Air Force as well. Just recently they've come out with a fairly extensive study, "Anaconda: the Air Power Perspective," which I can probably sum up with their conclusions of the Army just doesn't know how to use air power, therefore it was all their fault. But from your book and from my own observations, it does seem like there's plenty of fault to go around--with the Air Force planning staff that was on-site, with the Air Force staff back in Saudi Arabia. So if you give me sort of your impressions of where the bubble really was lost on close air support, because the first one and two days, as you remember, there was no good air support.

MR. NAYLOR: Yes. I mean, just to address that Air Force study that you referred to, I attended the release briefing on that in the Pentagon, and I read it closely. Frankly, as I suppose something of an authority on this battle now, I did not think too highly of it. Some of its conclusions, I thought, were very--were sound. But they used some spurious information and in fact some quite incorrect information to back that up. And they didn't seem to have interviewed anybody in the United States Army about the issue. And when asked about that, the head of the Air Force's lessons learned operation, which produced the report, said, "Well, it's called an air power perspective."

The Air Force has always specialized in drinking its own, er, Kool-Aid.

OT:

Live Oil concert or Coal Aid?

Idiotarian musicians pimping for oil and coal.

#74 Perplexed 10/14/07 10:27:52 am reply quote report 0

re: #25 Killgore Trout

Send in the clones...
Vaccine company on verge of breakthrough print this article

Results have been extremely promising in clinical trials involving mice genetically cloned to replicate humans.Scientists initially injected the mice with cancer cells, which formed huge tumours and made them very ill. Within 14 days of receiving the vaccine, each one became tumour-free and perfectly healthy. The mice were re-injected and no new tumours formed. The trials were repeated three times with the same results.

Science!

Hmmm, I notice that the followers of the prophet for profit didn't invent this stuff in either Egypt, Lebanon, evil house of saud, Jordan, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, etc. Could it have something to do with the mindset of the people living in that area?

Those folks are working to perfect their 'seethe-on-a-shingle' for global use.

re: #75 Sharmuta

By bombing too many targets of questionable importance for
its aims, and not explaining why it bombed what it did, Israel lost the
war for public opinion

Yet hamas, fatah, al-qaeda, et al
can bomb indiscriminately targets of vital importance (or just buses
full of children) without explaining themselves and yet it is the US
and Israel that will continue to lose the war for public opinion.

/The deck is stacked- *spit*

My, how quickly the media forget the success they had with THE GREEN HELMET MAN!

Where's Rage Boy when you need him?

WHere's Baghdad Bob? (There are no Americans at the airport!) Remember his reporting? Ya know what? He speaks English. And, he'd put C-BS's ratings through the roof! Instead, they went with Katie Couric.

The data collecting that brought Katie Couric IN, stunk to the high heavens.

This is what the NY Times is all about.

NYT's Rich: Americans, You Gestapo Swine

Those "see no evil' residents of the Third Reich came to be known as the "good Germans," and Rich unsubtly sets the tone for his New York Times column of this morning by entitling it "The 'Good Germans' Among Us."

Verscharfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.’ It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.

But Rich, unsatisfied with his Bush administration = Gestapo slur, goes on to smear millions of his fellow Americans. Thunders the Times columnist in self-righteous fury:

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo.

Note Rich's "their own Gestapo." As far as he's concerned, Nazi Germany had its Gestapo, and we have ours.

Hey Frank Rich; fuck you.

What a waste of tax payer dollars.

re: #74 Perplexed

The Canadians and Europe are going to be selling cures to us here in the US because we are afraid of cloning, stem cells, chimeras. Let's not follow the Islamic world into the trash bin of history.

re: #82 Killgore TroutGenomes!

I blame the MSM on it all. War is hell and is not a game but must be fought to win and end. There will always be mistakes and thats just too bad ! Shit happens !

Its time to disallow the MSM to over analize the next time there is a war and to be fought like in the first Gulf War and finish it. They can use old pictures from the archives to tell their pitiful storys of how us ( the enemy) shot unused missiles into Achmeds house while he's sipping Turkish coffee

By bombing too many targets of questionable importance for its aims, and not explaining why it bombed what it did, Israel lost the war for public opinion

Public opinion! As if that's the end-all, be-all of foreign relations! Why- in the future, we should just take an international poll to see what countries should do to win public opinion before they take action.

Poll results coming in now...

97.2% polled said Israel should just let the palistinians shove them into the sea.

96.4% polled said the US should FOAD, but only after sending foreign aid to their country.

re: #44 Cognito

re: #33 EC Marm

I saw that.

I like this way better, too. Gives the ratings system at least a little bit of heft. Honestly, previously I just regarded "dings" as silly. They may have provided a useful function to Charles, so I understand why he created the system, but they reflected little of the actual value of any particular comment.

Then again, I'm saying that from the position of someone who had a permanent "-2" attached behind his name...

Dinged you! Couldn't resist. I racked up evil karma at slashdot years ago (apparently for being a conservative), and never could dig out of it. SO I know what you're saying.

Somebody PLEASE undo my nefarious deed, please go back and hit Cognito's PLUS for comment #44.

Killgore Trout (#82),

The Canadians and Europe are going to be selling cures to us here in the US because we are afraid of cloning, stem cells, chimeras. Let's not follow the Islamic world into the trash bin of history.

That's about the stupid thing I've ever heard you say.

Why don't you go back to making up quotes to tar Ann Coulter.

The last of my dumpster-diving:

Not that Frank Rich is actually saying that Bush=Hitler--heaven forfend!--but he does compare Americans who aren't stopping him to

those "good Germans" who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo.

Nancy tries to be a leader...

Congress must approve US attack vs Iran - Pelosi

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush must seek congressional approval before taking any military action in Iran, unless Tehran attacks the United States first, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday.

"We don't believe that any authorities that the president has would give him the ability to go in without an act of Congress," Pelosi told ABC's "This Week" program.

"Any president, if we are attacked, if our country is attacked has -- even under the War Powers Act -- very strong powers to go after that country. But short of that, he must come to the Congress," said the top Democrat in the House of Representatives.

Does anyone trust Congress to get anything accomplished right now?

re: #80 Geepers

Aw, geez! Preview always keeps me one step behind.

#86 haakondahl 10/14/07 10:37:34 am reply quote report 0

re: #44 Cognito

re: #33 EC Marm

I saw that.

I like this way better, too. Gives the ratings system at least a little bit of heft. Honestly, previously I just regarded "dings" as silly. They may have provided a useful function to Charles, so I understand why he created the system, but they reflected little of the actual value of any particular comment.

Then again, I'm saying that from the position of someone who had a permanent "-2" attached behind his name...

Dinged you! Couldn't resist. I racked up evil karma at slashdot years ago (apparently for being a conservative), and never could dig out of it. SO I know what you're saying.

Somebody PLEASE undo my nefarious deed, please go back and hit Cognito's PLUS for comment #44.

Now, all of a sudden you crave a dinging.

Europe Stirring?

"Unlike other religions," he argues, "Islam is not only a religion. It's an ideology aiming to create a different legal system. That's sharia. That's a big problem and in a proper democracy it has to be tackled. If the politicians don't, the people will."

Let's hope so.

re: #89 NJDhockeyfan

No! A thousand times NO.

re: #87 Geepers

It's true. We're about 10 years behind the rest of the civilized world on biotech. What's with the hostility?

Fidel Reads to Hugo
, wearing his all-too-familiar tracksuit.

OT - (sort of)

Wash Post admits Surge is working..

"..it's looking more and more as though those in and outside of Congress who last month were assailing Gen. Petraeus's credibility and insisting that there was no letup in Iraq's bloodshed were -- to put it simply -- wrong..."

Must have hurt to admit that...

re: #87 Geepers

Here comes India: Proposed biotech policy to be finalised in two weeks

re: #86 haakondahl

There. Fixed it for ya.

Family beaten as YouTube party descends into chaos

LONDON (Reuters) - A teen-ager was airlifted to hospital and his father had his nose broken when gatecrashers went on the rampage at a 16th birthday party after details were posted on YouTube, police and media reports said Friday.

More than 100 uninvited teenagers descended on the family house, stole whisky and champagne, smashed windows and started fighting, according to reports.

Engineer David Worthy, 53, was punched in the face when he tried to turn away a group of youths, while his son Stephen, 18, was badly beaten.

# 89

"WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush must seek congressional approval before taking any military action in Iran, unless Tehran attacks the United States first, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday."

thats right ! In the future all SURPRISE ATTACKS must be on broadcast on CNN and Congress should also have a referendum and a 30 day waiting period plus a UN meeting and a discussion with the EU.

That should scare the enemy into thinking about doing anything !
General Petrosi

re: #61 salt1907

The recent firerstorm over the upcoming "Islamofascism Awareness Week" at where (GWU?) is an example of how it has become impossible even to identify the enemy publicly.

This is the meeting point of Leftist ideology and Islamic fascism - the Leftist ideology of "tolerance" and "multiculturalism" demonizes the mere identification of the enemy; and the enemy ruthlessly exploits that tactic to the advantage of the psychological/subversion part of their war plan.

Absent this poisonous, suicidal cultural ideology here at home and in Europe, the Islamofascists would have no chance against us.

In fact, Islamofascism has become a real and present danger at this point in history precisely because this suicidal Leftist idology exists.

The Whabbis saw their moment, and they seized it.

re: #70 NJDhockeyfan

Sell like...hell?

re: #80 Geepers

Hey Frank Rich; fuck you.

I'll give you a second on that. Apparently not satisfied with:
Bush = Hitler
The argument now is being made that those citizens that don't wish to have themselves, children, or grandchildren vaporized in some grand al Q victory against the filthy infidels now are Nazi supporters/enablers? He can [deleted] my [deleted].

re: #82 Killgore Trout

re: #74 Perplexed

The Canadians and Europe are going to be selling cures to us here in the US because we are afraid of cloning, stem cells, chimeras. Let's not follow the Islamic world into the trash bin of history.

Let's say for argument's sake that we made a semi intelligent slave for doing drudge work and that slave had 98% of the human genome. At what point do we declare someone human? I firmly believe that we should tread lightly in certain areas and chimeras are one of those areas. I remember the nuclear researcher in S. America who took some short cuts one Friday afternoon and got a mega dosage of radiation for his efforts. I don't want to read that someone has managed to attach the small pox virus to the common cold virus as an attempt to reduce humanity's impact on global warming.

re: #89 NJDhockeyfan

The current Congress has, IMHO, eclipsed the previous record holder that Harry S. Truman ran against. Yes, that Do-Nothing Congress had a GOP majority in both houses.

re: #104 Perplexed

We have NO right to play God when it comes to creating life. Period. End of story.

re: #79 Carol Herman

C-BS's. Like this a lot Carol! They can't even broadcast football games any more without a political context.

Regarding this bombing study:

I wonder if a similar study was done on the Kosovo 15k+ bombing campaign to ascertain whether NATO (or Gen. Clark)'s

use of air power was of diminishing value as the fight dragged on because it was used without enough discrimination.

or whether NATO (Gen. Clark)'s

error, the study concludes, was insufficient discernment in its airstrikes.

The Kosovo campaign, seemingly similar to the Lebanon action, couldn't get the rocket launchers. And killed a bunch of civilians indescriminately.

Here's the most absurd statement:

Israel also undertook an intentionally punishing and destructive air campaign against the people and government of Lebanon.

Israel aimed at decommissioning the underground bunkers, not the people. They warned and gave time to get out. The aerial photos show only a small area affected in Beirut.

So what are these people talking about?

re: #89 NJDhockeyfan

Nancy tries to be a leader...

Congress must approve US attack vs Iran - Pelosi

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush must seek congressional approval before taking any military action in Iran, unless Tehran attacks the United States first, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday.

"We don't believe that any authorities that the president has would give him the ability to go in without an act of Congress," Pelosi told ABC's "This Week" program.

"Any president, if we are attacked, if our country is attacked has -- even under the War Powers Act -- very strong powers to go after that country. But short of that, he must come to the Congress," said the top Democrat in the House of Representatives.

Does anyone trust Congress to get anything accomplished right now?

In case Nancy hasn't noticed, Iran has been attacking us regulary since 1979 - starting with their invasion of our soverign territory, the embassy in Terhan - an act of war in international law. Just becaue they use proxies and clones and the attacks are not on Main Street, U.S.A., they are still acts of war.

#97 Killgore Trout 10/14/07 10:43:29 am reply quote report 1

re: #87 Geepers

Here comes India: Proposed biotech policy to be finalised in two weeks

Enjoying the nice open discussion...

re: #104 Perplexed

Of course there should be some caution just like in all areas of science. Eventually somebody is going to clone a human and carry it to term but that's not what I'm talking about. The future of medicine depends on biotech research. It's the wave of the future.

My son is in the genome field and I can see how exciting it is. re: #111 Killgore Trout

re: #111 Killgore Trout

re: #104 Perplexed

Of course there should be some caution just like in all areas of science. Eventually somebody is going to clone a human and carry it to term but that's not what I'm talking about. The future of medicine depends on biotech research. It's the wave of the future.

Just concerned that the wave could be a tsunami and drown us all.

re: #110 debutaunt

I'd forgotten about India. They have an enormous braintrust and if they get serious they'll dominate the next century scientifically and economically.

re: #114 Killgore Trout
Trillions of identical sacred cows!

re: #112 debutaunt

Cool, he's on the cutting edge of a field that's really going blossom soon. It must be like starting in the computer field in 1970.

re: #115 debutaunt

HA!

re: #116 Killgore Trout
He has the same excitement - wide open field for engineers.

re: #118 debutaunt

And lots and lots of telephone support people.

Have you seen Albert Brooks movie about that topic? re: #119 Perplexed

Idiots like Arkin exist, and I suppose the Air Force does need to take him into account. Much easier if he would just wear a GPS locator, but I suppose commissioning a study by him is another way to do it.

Are we painting our jets green yet for Eid?

We're doomed.

re: #120 debutaunt

Nope. Is it a good movie?

re: #64 ploome hineni

I'm still your fan. On most topics, I find you to be well backed with facts and reasonable commentary. There are times when I think you go "over the edge". However, I find many of your comments to be both interesting and intellectually challenging.

Given how poorly the pundits have done in describing anything about Irak or Israel's wars; it's about time we got to realize the affirmative action crowd decided to throw this into the void.

And, for how long with skewed marketeering work, huh?

If anything, Arkin opens the door for a good, honest discussion, ahead.

As to Beirut, you have Michael Totten, himself; comparing pictures of the light damage (really!) in Beirut, to what went on in Ramadi, BEFORE the sunnis decided Petraeus meant business.

Ink's never won a battle for anyone, yet.

And, during the civil war, ink was used to demoralize Ulysses S. Grant. Instead? The hacks got told by Lincoln, that competence COUNTS.

Israel and the USA, both have lots of competent people working on our war efforts. While the "pundits" and their ilk have the losers; like Colin Powell, and Armitage.

Oddly enough, Bob Woodward, himself, would not play with Armitage.

And, all that dreck about Plame, which flooded toilets everywhere, has been flushed.

This stuff? Doesn't scare me one iota.

The TRUTH will have a field day on the gutter snipers.

...Israel’s use of air power was of diminishing value as the fight dragged on because it was used without enough too much discrimination.

There. Fixed it for him.

re: #40 debutaunt

33 EC Marm 10/14/07 9:59:22 am reply quote report 0

re: #18 Cognito

Hm. Every time I go away for bit, Charles adds a new feature...

Considerably fewer negative ratings these days, apparently.

Ha.

Although if you go one thread down, someone get negated by about 7 last time I looked. Here's the comment. This is better, this way.

Nice coding, Charles, btw.

Dumb comment, crappy spelling - should have been more than -7 !

debutaunt -
Stop copy/pasting. Just hit "quote" instead of "reply!"

;)

re: #52 EC Marm

re: #44 Cognito
It's going to interesting, that's for sure. I dinged myself down on a vacuous comment I made just as a test, and someone pinged me back up to 0. I might make fewer comments in support of someone now, though. It's easier just to ping 'em a plus.

I thought we weren't allowed to ding ourselves. ?

re: #56 EC Marm

re: #51 realwest

re: #33 EC Marm It's now -10 and climbing falling fast!

I just went back and looked again, Charles is a coding maniac, the names report in alphabetical order! That's borderline obsessive compulsive. :~)

Names? ! ! ? ? Oh, NOOO! Didn't know Charles added that feature (a good one, BTW). Now everyone knows I hit the + BY ACCIDENT! ! ! I swear, y'all! Meant to hit the — like everybody else!

CHARLES, help me out here. Do your magic and change my rating on that comment to a +! PLEASE!

/OMG, I'm done for.

First, let’s recall William Arkin’s military record, as per William Arkin: 1 tour in the US Army, in Germany, starting when he was 18.

As he had only a high-school degree, he was probably a Spec-4 (an E-4), possibly a buck Sergeant (E-5).

Further reading of his resume points to a number of well-chosen jobs with essentially political requirements (sufficiently doctrinaire).

His expertise seems to be mostly the result of reading books (Tom Clancy?) and self-appointed job titles.

“By bombing too many targets of questionable importance for its aims, and not explaining why it bombed what it did, Israel lost the war for public opinion, according to the author of the study, William M. Arkin, an expert in assessing bomb damage” (emphasis mine)

This is a political statement, as shown by the selection in bold.

If Israel lost the war for public opinion, a better explanation, and likely the truth, is that virtually all of the Media reporting were at least slightly biased against Israel.

One only has to read the first part of Lieutenant General (Ret) Sanchez’ (a much better source than a high-school-educated 1-tour E4 or E5) recent speech.

“Israel did what it was capable of doing because the ground forces weren’t ready to do what people thought they wanted them to do,” he said. ”

This is the voice of ignorance and inexperience writing.

This sentence, while perhaps syntactically and semantically correct, is nonsensical; “them” and “they” could refer to either “people” or “ground forces” interchangeably, depending on reading. Isn’t Arkin, based on his post-military-days education, a trained writer?

Further, “ground forces” (certainly the IDF) are trained according to doctrine, not “to do what people thought they wanted them to do” (read the excerpt as you like).

“Mr. Arkin argues that too much concern for the legality of individual targets was counterproductive. Waiting for more than a day into the war to bomb Dahiye, Hezbollah’s leadership district in southern Beirut, for instance, no doubt saved civilian lives, but it also guaranteed that Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had time to escape.”

Which is it;
“ . . . too many targets of questionable importance. . .”
or
“ . . . too much concern . . .”?

“While critical of how Israel used its air force, Mr. Arkin defends the flexibility of air power in counterterrorism. Although Israel was retaliating for a Hezbollah raid that captured two soldiers and killed others, he considers the war pre-emptive. He said Israel used the raid as a pretext to destroy most of Hezbollah’s longer-range Syrian and Iranian missiles and launchers, which posed the largest threat to Israel. ”

This is the voice of ignorance and inexperience writing.

Israel made no military strikes until after the Israeli soldiers were kidnapped. Once Israel went into Lebanon, did they really have the option to avoid the Hizballah rockets? Perhaps there is an explanation in Arkin’s book.

“Israel’s error, the study concludes, was insufficient discernment in its airstrikes.”

In the case of the Israel-Hizballah War in 2006, Hizballah chose to fight from among, and frequently behind, civilians.

Sounds like a job for a sniper.

Unfortunately,
“ . . .insufficient discernment . . .”
seems to conflict with
“. . . too much concern for the legality of individual targets . . . ”.

Which is it? Perhaps there is an explanation in Arkin’s book.

Why is the USAF spending tax dollars on pulp such as this?

Waiting for Arkin to publish himself, getting some reviews, then buying copies based on the reviews, seems to make more sense.

Damn! I can't even get my own correction right! Here's what I said:

CHARLES, help me out here. Do your magic and change my rating on that comment to a +! PLEASE!

Here's what I meant: CHARLES, help me out here. Do your magic and change my rating on that comment to a + change my rating on that comment to a —! PLEASE!

re: #130 Arbalest

And not a word anywhere about the Israelis dead in the street. The Israelis didn't start the air campaign until rockets started landing randomly inside Israel. We were there when it started. One of the random rockets landed on a command and control facility, which made the Israelis wonder if the neighbors had learned to hit something they aimed at. Time showed the rockets to be random after all, but the Israelis had already sent the IAF. So Arkin's only comments about Israel are that they don't win the PR battle when they defend themselves. Anybody who can't see the reason for action against a neighbor sending rockets over the border into civilian areas is biased in my book.

Israel was very selective! What it did do, however, that pissed off the UN, and even some Americans, was go into Beirut! That was the established "no-no" land.

They bombed deeply, into Nasrallah's terrority, hitting targets correctly. Totally wiping Nasrallah's banks down to rubble. Including his printing presses, where he was making counterfeits.

Only later, when Michael Totten got to Ramadi, was he able to produce, for his audience, the photographs of what Americans DID, which was thorough. Not a single sniper haven was left standing. Blocks and blocks. Entire neighborhoods CRUSHED.

And, then cleaned up.

Petraeus was able to pay for the labor who went to work cleaning up the mess air attacks make.

Ramadi, today, has success written all over it! It's where the sunnis in Irak turned around, and realized the saud's were their real enemies.

And, in Israel? The Winograd Commission thought it would slice Olmert's head off. This, in turn would make Kadima collapse.

Nope. That did not happen, yet. And, in spite of what the dishonest media say; the Winograd Commission, still to give out it's final report, has a lot of terrorized lawyers busy writing it so that it comes out as mish-mash.

YOu know, in WW2, there were areas of silence.

Seems "LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS" is more than an old army poster.

Even in sales, those that do it well, know to give a good close, and then to shut-up. Those who remain speaking are losers.

IGNORE THE RATINGS!

The ratings are about as worthwhile as a Ron Paul poll.

Besides, if you think only a few people come here; less than half a dozen, to read what Charles' posts, you'd be wrong, making that assumption.

Ask to see his site meter. It will help you get a clue.

re: #100 earth56

# 89

"WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush must seek congressional approval before taking any military action in Iran, unless Tehran attacks the United States first, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday."

thats right ! In the future all SURPRISE ATTACKS must be on broadcast on CNN and Congress should also have a referendum and a 30 day waiting period plus a UN meeting and a discussion with the EU.

That should scare the enemy into thinking about doing anything !
General Petrosi

I do not remember Ms. Pelosi being so picky when Clinton was misusing the military to distract us from him & the chubby intern.
VOTE THEM OUT!

re: #126 Zack

...Israel’s use of air power was of diminishing value as the fight dragged on because it was used without enough too much discrimination.

There. Fixed it for him.

Actually, there were two raids deep into the Ba-kakta Valley, where the injured two soldiers were originally taken. NOT THERE! But Israel took out the headquarters computers, and brought them back to Israel, safely.

Israel also went into Beirut (against American orders), to blast apart Nasrallah's "banking" apparatus. This was successfully accomplished.

While Bush had Baker and Gates trying to make Olmert go into Syria. On a detour. Olmert didn't go.

So the "bad press" ensued. Big deal.

Hilter also had a lock on the press; and the people who loved him.

One dozen years. Then, hitler and germany were KAPUT.

Stalin did well, though. Picking up a lot of territory and absolutely terrorizing eastern europe. And, eastern Berlin. Too bad. So sad. There were broken sympathy meters all over the place.

Play with fire, and sometimes you get burned.

As to good stories; especially good war stories! They'll see their light of day, eventually.

Even down to the makeup room, where brave men dressed up like "grocers," to travel into gazoo by donkey cart. And, not get caught. Instead? As Olmert would say: "They caught some tasty fishes."

I wonder what year Leon Uris had Exodus published? Wanna guess?

Ro answer my own question, Exodus was first published in 1959.

The idea that Israel does not enjoy a good relationship with Americans is just plain silly.

re: #101 NamDoc67

re: #61 salt1907

The recent firerstorm over the upcoming "Islamofascism Awareness Week" at where (GWU?) is an example of how it has become impossible even to identify the enemy publicly.

This is the meeting point of Leftist ideology and Islamic fascism - the Leftist ideology of "tolerance" and "multiculturalism" demonizes the mere identification of the enemy; and the enemy ruthlessly exploits that tactic to the advantage of the psychological/subversion part of their war plan.

Absent this poisonous, suicidal cultural ideology here at home and in Europe, the Islamofascists would have no chance against us.

In fact, Islamofascism has become a real and present danger at this point in history precisely because this suicidal Leftist idology exists.

The Whabbis saw their moment, and they seized it.

Great post...

re: #133 Carol Herman

Only later, when Michael Totten got to Ramadi, was he able to produce, for his audience, the photographs of what Americans DID, which was thorough. Not a single sniper haven was left standing. Blocks and blocks. Entire neighborhoods CRUSHED.

Hmm. I wish we would publicize these pictures better. But really, we are not at war with the buildings, and it's clear that the vast majority of the people, guilty or innocent, had all the time in the world to clear out if they wanted to.

Ramadi, today, has success written all over it! It's where the sunnis in Irak turned around, and realized the saud's were their real enemies.

I don't know, I wish that were true. Sure, they're sick of jihadi nut cases coming in on Saudi money and making them miserable, but I have to fear it was really just that, especially with Petreus, it was more like the jihadi nut cases were not sufficiently effective against either Americans or Shiites. Well, if it's a success, we'll take it, but I'm still very skeptical about the why's and wherefore's.

Somebody at the U.S. Air Force, are you reading this?

Get William Arkin and his trash book out of the U.S. Air Force. We don't wanted tainted/biased views influence impressible minds of young Air Force cadets.

Another sign of doomdom: CNN's "documentary" on the MD Snipers without one mention of Islam. Hey, what are those veils his ex and his kids are wearing? Could they be...no.

Motives are mysterious, Lee Malvo feels bad about all that killing, studying college courses in jail...Free Malvo! coming soon.

“the first sustained precision air campaign mounted by a country other than the United States,” he said in a telephone interview this week.

Hmm,,,not true...

Russian Air Campaign Checnya 1999

The Never Talked About War & Op "Askari" (Angola)- significant Air Power Employment in 1984.

Pakistan/India 1971

The Falklands 1982

I'm sure I missed some. Such shotty history, who could give any credence to Arkin?

re: #142 neverquit

This is actually good stuff.

And, it shows, yet again, the magic of the Internet. How information is driven by what people KNOW, and post.

As to Arkin, he's gonna be aware that whatever he writes is going to see criticism. Not from the mainstream, but from "the customers."

Here the errors will be open to inspection. If he chooses to pump crap, he won't get it verified.

Getting grant money doesn't guarantee you anything, anymore.

re: #139 itellu3times

Wars, when they are battled well, bring your enemies to the point where they are willing to surrender.

As a matter of fact, Arik Sharon saw this happening, when he pulled victory over eygpt out of the 1973 war. And, the eygptians ripped at all their insignias, in their rush to surrender.

To separate out the officers, Arik ordered them all to drop their pants. Eygptian officers wouldn't be caught dead in cotton. So everyone wearing silk got captured. Everybody else ran home.

This is very old news. Ulysses S. Grant mastered this during the Civil War. Later, he became President. And, American War Colleges still teach this stuff.

The modern media establishments, by the way, are dying. Those who haven't invested in other things, are close to having to close their doors.

If I had to guess? In twenty years the whole publishing industry will have been brought down, or changed beyond recognition.

Similar to the way automobiles made buggy whips obsolete.

While the rules of winning battles still remains as familiar as it was to Ulysses S. Grant.

The old stuff that works, people are willing to keep.

Arkin's not there!

As a matter of fact, I can see welcoming in opposing views, once this dude gets published.

For instance: Being published didn't help Scott Thomas Beauchamp one iota.

The General Officer Corps of the US is filled with the PC types that were promoted during the Clinton years. Col Yingling (see link below) stated that the Generals were derelict in their duty because they knew that the initial strategy in Iraq was based on too few troops. They kept quiet, all except for the Chief of Staff who was forced to retire because of his going public with his misgivings.
What we have now is mostly those Generals who agreed with the current PC approach to warfare and those who disagreed were shown the door.
As Yingling states in his article only those who thought along the same lines as the PC Generals were promoted and the others were weeded out.

[Link: www.armedforcesjournal.com...]

re: #145 1 US Sheeple

I don't see Irak as "poor strategy." If anything, Schwartzkopf (Gulf War #1), and Tommy Franks, ran the hell home. When that wasn't the best way to lead, anything.

And, from the Civil War, I've learned enough lessons, that our best generals, make it to the top, after suffering setbacks. They just keep fighting, ahead.

If you went and looked back to the Civil War; in three of the first years, at least, you'd have been sure the Union was losing.

Then? There seems to be a learning curve.

Wars tend to have learning curves built into them.

I think it's a terrible idea to think you can design on a war on paper; and then it plays like a script.

Life doesn't play like a script.

I also think that Bush's Irak plans ... as long as we give this TIME ... will reach fruition. But not for the PC crowd. And, definitely NOT for the saud's.

There's also some truth to the fact that on this globe there are warring factions; sometimes. Somewhere. We don't live in a peaceful world at all.

And, the TRADE in war implements is also strong.

As to set backs, how do you go about recognizing them? Israel just went in and flattened "something" in syria. You don't know what. And, you don't know if she did this in spite of the USA. Or with lots of blessings. (She also, it appears, got blessings from the Turks.)

France, too, has shifted gears.

And, in England? Still coming to terms with a disastrous Basra policy all their own.

No one's got a crystal ball.

But getting pentagon generals to look better, than say, retrospect teaches us McClelland looked in the civil war ... should make anyone invested in their uniforms a lot more alert to how history sorts these things out.

Bullshit is not a collector's item.

#146
The inability to hold areas that had been cleared (as in Vietnam) was the initial problem that lead to an influx of foreign fighters that resulted in the killings and suicide bombings in Iraq.
Just a cursory study of what happened in the Vietnam war would have given insight as to what to do about curbing terrorist resistance.
Clearing and holding areas, as is being done now, is clearly the key to combating the terrorists.

Well, if we needed any further proof that the Flying Coast Guard is badly led, here it is.

This is the same USAF that wants total control over all UAV's, an incredibly stupid idea which would guarantee that American troops in the field would never have a UAV available when they needed one.

#76 haakondahl:

Sorry, I can't let this one stand:

The Army, not the Air Force, fucked up Anaconda. The Army had that operation in the works for some time, and only as they were about to execute, did they bother telling the Air Force "oh, by the way, we're gonna need some support on this."

Go look at a map. At the time Anaconda went down, there were no fixed wing aircraft in Afghanistan. None. Nada. Zip. Any fighters had to come from the Emirates, or off a carrier (they eventually also had B-52s flying all the way from Diego Garcia, in the middle of the Indian Ocean). And because of the flying distance involved, they also needed a buttload of tankers. The Air Force scrambled and did a pretty fucking good job of throwing a response together. Hell, they even managed to redeploy an A-10 squadron into Afghanistan during the operation. Do you have any idea how much freaking airlift that requires? I'm not surprised someone would bitch about the scarce air support the first couple of days.

The Army's problem is that they tend to think of close air support like they do about on-call artillery fires -- just holler and it magically appears. Well, it doesn't work that way.

And further complicating the air planning, Anaconda went down in a small bowl-shaped valley that just happened to lie beneath a major civilian airline corridor. And the airlines weren't about to close that air corridor, 'cause it was the middle of the Hadj -- the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, which is a HUGE moneymaker for the regional airlines (not to mention a religious imperative).

It took a few days, but the Air Force eventually had quite a sizeable force stacked up above the valley, on-call. Flying through a busy air corridor, funneled into a small bowl-shaped valley.

Finally, there was no Air Force planning staff in-country at that time. All the Army had along was its normal complement of ALOs.

#148 Malleus Dei:

The Air Force does not want "total control" over all UAVs. They do need to be in on the planning. One of the tasks of the air component commander is to act as the Airspace Control Authority, which kinda like the FAA. He has to deconflict the use of airspace. Mid-air collisions suck.

Over in Iraq right now, the Army pretty much has free use of all airspace below 10K feet. What the Army wants to buy is a new suite of higher-altitude UAVs, which happen to look like a variant of the Predators the Air Force is currently using, and they want to use them up to 20K feet, which is where the Air Force is already operating. So, if these new UAVs look and perform like Predaors (same size, shape, and capabilities), and fly where the Air Force operates, why shouldn't the Air Force operate them? Why not simply ask for more Predators? You don't have to "own" an asset in the joint inventory; there are ways to set up the necessary joint command relationships to get that kind of support from another service. The problem is, the Army doesn't want to bother with that. Not very Joint.

The Air Force wants to be the single acquisition authority for UAV procurement. That has nothing to do with operational employment. The Air Force belives it can eliminate duplication through a single oversight agency, and if you've ever been around military acquisition (I have), that makes sense. It also wants to ensure, for the largr UAVs, that they all use interoperable data protocols, so they can use all of them to build the theater air picture, and so everyone can share the imagery. It's a standardization issue.

The Air Force lays no claim to all the mini- and micro-UAVs the Army currently uses. Too many to get a handle on, and many of them are very localized in their usage. But remember that FAA-like fuction the Air Force performs? The Army's atitude is to just throw the UAVs up there and hope God sorts it out. Well, there have already been some mid-air collisions involving the mini-UAVs, mostly with Army helicopters (and I've heard one C-130), and so far, no real damage. Till now, we've just shrugged that off. But one of these days, a UAV will get sucked into the engine of a civilain airliner and bring it down. The ensuing crapstorm won't be pleasant.

This is the kind of thing that makes one lose hope for Western civilization.

The Air Force picks the most anti-American, anti-military hack writer it can find to do a fact-finding study on military use of force against Hezbollah whom Arkin sees as innocent freedom fighters, not terrorists.

It's bad enough that Arkin exists, gets to spread his vile anti-patriotism and be paid for it, but now people who should know better give him a hacksaw and say "Go to it"...

A study of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war commissioned by the United States Air Force and to be published this month concludes that Israel’s use of air power was of diminishing value as the fight dragged on because it was used without enough discrimination.

This is precisely the opposite reason why Israel's bombing campaign in the Lebanon war was not as effective as it should have been. Israel was using too much restraint and not too little.

Air power must be relentless in it's intensity and prolonged in it's application if it is to be effective. Wherever a target presents itself it must be destroyed regardless of how many enemy civilians may be killed. To do otherwise actually prolongs the war which results in more casualties on both sides.

The real culprit here is Just War Doctrine that infects both the Israeli and American military establishments. Among other thing Just War Doctrine demands that the force used in wars be "proportional" and that enemy civilians be protected even at the expense of own own military personnel. Obviously fighting by the standards of Just War will mean at best a stalemate with fighting to be continued at a later date.

This is just what happened in last year's Lebanon war. Bush, Rice and Olmert turned yellow and chickened out of the war just as it reached the tipping point in Israel's favor because Lebanese civilian casualties were increasing. Even Hizbollah latter admitted it was on the ropes at that point.

When this war inevitably starts up again the casualties will be much, much higher. Iran has been re-arming Hizbollah at a furious rate and we all know what happened in Syria with the North Korean nuclear incident. Can Israel be sure it got all of that nuclear material before the next war starts?

re: #76 haakondahl

EACH of the services drink their own kool-aid, not just the Air Force.

To say Arkin's study is expected to influence the Air Force is an overstatement. This is not an official Pentagon study from the Air Staff. It will probably generate a roundtable or two in a few USAF think tanks, but it won't impact airpower doctrine in the way you think (that's a whole different process). He was an adjunct professor at Air University and was probably given the opportunity to publish this work as a sweetner for him to accept the position. They do it with all the civilian academics down there. It pays dividends since they're able to attract interesting academics that way. USAF is open to studying various viewpoints due to the Billy Mitchell legacy. Air University is serious about that, as they should be. Please don't sweat this.