Nom de plume: Rivrdog

There's a fine little NAVY war on now...

...against the pirates in Somalia. It looks like the European Union, acting with the services of the French, who have provided a littoral-combat ship, the Dixmude, with it's 16 helos (some are gunships), have taken the pirate nests under fire with combined ops from offshore. Hmmm....looks like that thirty mike-mike chin cannon could make a mess of a pirate ship, and the two pods of folding-fin 2.75" rockets would add to the fray...TOW or HOT missiles in case they meet any Islamic armor protecting a pirate lair...yeppers, littoral combat, all the first-world nations have invested heavily in their shallow-water Navies, and this is what they do.

BTW, if one of the US Navy's ships, such as the LCS-2 USS Independence, were to join that fray, that 120 rounds per minute 75 mm gun could finally see some action, too. 

Now maybe the qat-chewing Somali sea-scum will feel the modern equivalent of the lash...

Are YOU a "threat" to those in power?

You might be, just by reading this blog, as a grumpy Major explains here.

Watch TV, get stupid

Example: Yesterday, the local Evening news I watched, (KATU, the ABC affiliate) had a story on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Oh, the emotion! Oh, now we can have "closure".

Wait a farging minute, boneheads. 100 years have passed since the ill-fated (and poorly-built and operated) liner went down. Who is left to "close"? No survivors of the shipwreck remain, the last one died several years ago, IIRC. Probably few sons or daughters of victims remain, either, since they would have to be at least 99 years old. Maybe a few grandchildren of victims remain, but they'd be at least in their 70's, and those people grew up to be adults before "closure" became the fad it is now, so they probably don't miss their grandpas and grandmas, either, never having seen them.

When someone says "closure" to you, they are probably a mush-for-brains liberal product of the past two generations of our failed educational system. Closure is when you shovel the dirt on the casket, or, at the very last moment, when the insurance company issues the check if you are the beneficiary.

Closure, my ass, but it's not the worst example. In an almost-comical display just last week, a Civil War soldier was re-buried from wherever he had been planted, to the Willamette National Cemetary here in Stumptown. The reason given was that he had not been properly buried when he expired some time after that war. Of course, the rifle squad were Civil War re-enactors (who had a problem doing a speedy reload of their percussion-ignition, muzzle-loading rifles to fire the second volley, (the telly didn't show the third volley). Of course, some shirt-tail family member was there to receive a flag (they didn't say how many stars were on it), and of course the anchorwoman had to gravely intone, "Now the family has "closure". Be still, my retching stomach...

Second example. Afghanistan just suffered though a spate of coordinated attacks in the capital, Kabul. Most were suicide kabooms. There were a bunch of them. This ayem, I am watching Fox News' morning show, and they trot out a retired General, name of Jackson. He immediately reminded me of GEN Wesley Clark, the Clintoon apologist First Class during the Serbian War. This General Jackson opined that the attacks were NOT a military setback for Obama's Afghani policy, since they were not done by the Taliban, but by the Haqqani Network who we are at war with, but won't admit it, in Pakistan.

Oh, REALLY, General? If we have weakened the Taliban but allowed a new group to take their place as the strong terror-mongers, just HOW is that a demonstration of success?

It must be Bonehead Monday.

Ruh-roh! IDF cancels all military leave...

Yeah, ruh-roh. The Israeli Defense Force usually lets lots of troops go home for the High Holy Days.

Could be nothing, could be war coming.

You decide, but I'm filling all my jerry jugs...

European history repeats itself

After Germany was defeated in 1918, it took them just a bit over 20 years to re-arm and start another World War.

Just over 20 years after the Soviet Union fell, Russia is now getting ready to face off against the Western World.

Coincidence?

I think not. Vladimir Putin is reputed to be an intense student of history, and throwing troops into the volatile mix that is Baby Assad's dictatorship should immediatley give our State Department a jolt.

But it won't, because unlike Putin, Obama is NOT a student of history, and in fact, never saw a history book he didn't want to re-write.

Long time no blog - UPDATED!

So, let's catch up:

In the past week of no blogging, I have:

• Just deleted 6 spam comments, from Canada, New Zealand, France and the US of A. I guess I am definitely read all over the world! WhooPee Farge!
• Went to the MOAA Portland dinner last week, met the Professor of Aerospace Studies at Portland University, a Catholic institution which has been responsible, in the past 60 years or so, for introducing eleven hundred new butter-bar officers to the Air Force and Army. Got a briefing on the ROTC Summer Camp, which appears to be not much changed from when I did the OTS version of it, only for 90 days, in 1967, to get MY butter bars. Your blogger was one of the last, true, "90-day wonders".
• Been coming around to the conclusion that we have, at this point in the War On Terror, farged up said War so badly we probably ought to just abandon it and wait for a new Commander in Chief before even thinking of starting it up again. When we first went into the 'Stan a decade ago, we sent in one division, together with some TAC air support, and blew the Taliban and Al-Qaeda off the map in about 3 months. They were unprepared for us, and it wasn't that hard a job, especially for the Tenth Mountain Division, which is built for that combat. Since then, we have installed and tolerated a complete crook of a President Karzai (similar to the crooks we installed and tolerated in MY war, Vietnam), we have saddled our troops with the most outrageous and inane Rules of Engagement ever heard of in any modern conflict, we have made STUPID mistakes, like failing to have a Muslim Imam help with the destruction of defiled Qurans, and now, tolerating certifiable Loonies (how many other of these ticking time bombs are there over there).
• Just a few minutes ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's aircraft was approaching Bagram MOB for a landing, when a stolen base vehicle took to the runway, apparently in an effort to kill the landing aircraft. The pilot aborted landing, and the vehicle's suicide-driver failed in his mission. How bad has our security gotten when we can't do enough OpSec and CommSec to keep the SecDef's ingress into the war zone a secret?

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UPDATE: 031412 2146 PDT: The Patriot Padre notes that US and Brit troops attending Leon Panetta's speech to the troops at Camp Leatherneck were told to disarm in his presence. Hmmmm.

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Our military is screwed up to the max. This security breach tells ME that the solid leaders have already all been replaced or retired, and now the military is led by fools and incompetents both at home and in the war zone. We need to get the HELL out of  'Stan before we waste any more US lives. Yes WASTE those lives. The probability of our actually accomplishing any WOT objective over there is long gone, and anyway, there is a high likelihood that we have encouraged/permitted Karzai to butter both sides of his toast, and he has reached an accomodation with the Taliban by now, which means that our men and women over there are all in great danger from ANY association with the Afganis.

When those troops come home, it is MY job and YOUR job to welcome them back, but never stop reminding them that it was Obama who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The WOT veterans are a powerful force, and if properly advised and reminded, give us the power to maintain our Constitution, since with their help, we could take the field against the government if that became necessary to save the Constitution. Note that this berserker incident will be used to try to get into the heads of all those returning vets, and the Obama Administration will try to convince them that they are ALL crazy, so they should be denied their 2A rights, be subjected to mandatory whacko treatment, etc.

When the first signs of those plans begin to appear (second signs, actually, the first sign appeared after Virginia Tech 5 years ago and the NRA kowtowed to it), we must all raise one very loud voice, at least as loud as the voice we have raised over Fast and Furious.

Yeah, your Rivrdog is still here, still blogging. Now, back to the WillBoat job.

Is Impeachment enough justice for this asswipe Judge?

Story here. A State Judge in PA tossed out an assault case against a Muslim, opining that the Muslim was "obligated" to assault the victim in the case, a person who acted as a "zombie" Prophet Muhammad, and thereby insulted the Muslim faith.

The Judge is Muslim, and should have recused himself when the case got to his docket.

The Judge invoked Sharia law, which is NOT the law of the land in PA or anywhere else in the USA.

The Judge is an idiot, because he had a perfectly good reason to toss the assault case, the "fighting words" Doctrine, and instead, chose to cite Sharia law.

Impeachment is too good (and too slow) for this Judge. He needs to be arrested and charged with Official Misconduct, in that he invoked a code of Law which is not recognized, and thereby broke his Oath to support and defend the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of PA, and therefor committed some grade of Treason. I'll be willing to bet that PA has a law or judical rule that a Judge charged with Official Misconduct may not sit on the bench while such a case is pending.That would get him off the bench the moment he is arrested and charged.

Get him off the bench. What's next for this asswipe? Will he dismiss Murder charges against a Muslim who committs an "honor killing"? Will he permit polygamy? Will he permit divorce without judical review, simply by the Muslim husband uttering "I divorce thee" three times?

This asswipe Judge has officially condoned Anarchy and denied the Constitutional Rule of Law. If there WERE any justice, he would be put on trial for his life for doing so.

The small businessman's Evensong

"Now I lay me down to sleep,

I've sold enough to pay for the Keep,

Should I die before I wake,

I pray (why the Hell didn't I finish that bottle of  '03 Ravenswood Sonoma Valley Cabernet)

It's been a good day for WillBoat.

Goodnight Chet, Goodnight Ed, Goodnight, World (and back when those words were uttered on NBC every night, it WAS a Good Night, because USAF General (CinC SAC) Curtis LeMay and his successors saw to it, and stalwart men held the thin nuke line, but it was good enough to keep the USA safe, and still would be (had not Bill Clinton closed out SAC). I was on that thin nuke line late in those days, and I'm proud to have done my part.

No war with Iran over nukes

We SHOULD have gone to war with Iran when their Copper Lance IEDs were killing our troops by the hundreds in Iraq, but we didn't. We should have gone to war with Iran when their proxies, Hizbullah and Hamas, made war upon our ally Israel in the summer of 2006, but we didn't. We should at least consider some form of warfare against Iran for propping up the Syrian dictator Baby Assad with gunboat diplomacy, but we apparently aren't.

Nukes are a different matter. Possessing them at home doesn't make you an automatic international pariah, or it shouldn't, anyway. No war with Iran over nukes.

We need to get this over to Iran: go ahead and build your Mullah-Bomb. Build a nice safe fort to put it in and hold prayers over it every Friday, if you must. Admire it, boast about it, even lie about it's power. Fine, all the members of the Nuclear Club do that.

What we THEN need to tell Iran is that joining the Nuke Club has one itsy-bitsy drawback: if you USE that nuke, you are then subject to nuclear retaliation. Annihilation. Turn your Holy City (Qom) to glass annihilation. On Friday evening during prayers annihilation. Make that promise believable. We USED to know how to make that threat believable, and it held off China and the USSR for years. It seems to have held off the Norks in recent years.

Mutually-assured destruction. Not high-tech, but proven nonetheless. It's a scalable concept, too. Works for one nuke or 10,000 of them.

It would help reinforce the MAD Doctrine if our peacenik President wasn't trying to disarm our own nuclear arsenal, and if the old USAF Strategic Air Command was reactivated, specifically with it's former purpose of being two of the three legs of the Nuclear Triad, but MAD is certainly viable, and even before nukes, the concept of MAD has been useful in international relations at least since the Greeks and Romans.

SEAL Team Six, again

This time, they go into Somalia to raid a pirate compound and rescue two hostages.

And they did it wrong, but I don't blame the SEALs, I blame the National Command structure.

The US just blew away, not only 9 pirates, but the chance to use a little psy-war on the rest of the pirate nest that is Somalia.

We have to have targeting intell on more than just the pirate nest that we just raided.

What we should have done is raid the one nest, recover the hostages, and simultaneous with the choppers lifting the SEALs out of there, B-52s would have bombed all the nests we had targeting info on. Simultaneous to THAT, the Navy and the multi-national anti-piracy force should have taken out ever pirate dhow they were shadowing, and we know about a few of THOSE.

If we had hit the pirates hard from the air, sea and land, simultaneously, the word would have gotten out, and probably half those engaged in that outlaw way of life would have given up their jobs on the spot. In a few weeks, we gather more intell, hammer them again from three axes of attack, and my guess is that the threat would be over by March.

And here's one for Buckingham Palace: have the Royal Chamberlain march over to the Old City, have a friendly chat with those blokes running Lloyds of London, and see to it that they REQUIRE armed crews on ships in those waters, as a condition of issuing them insurance. Slow down the process of paying piracy insurance claims to the shipowners. Slow it WAAAAY down. When it becomes a non-starter for the shipping industry to tolerate piracy from Somalia (or elsewhere), piracy will end.

In the short term, pay the Russians what they ask for providing armed crews for the ships transiting those waters. The Russians know how to handle the pirates, and any dhow seeing a Russian ensign on a ship turns away.