Veterans Day

I've timed this to be at 11AM in France, as the day was originally called Armistice Day, to mark the day that the guns fell silent on the Western Front, 105 years ago. In a number of British Commonwealth countries, the day is Rememberance Day.

"Veterans Day sales" are evil.

When someone says "thank you for your service", I thank them, but I wonder if they also served and if not why not. I'm not generally in favor of mandatory service (or mandatory voting), but those who don't do something for the country, be it military service or public service or volunteering for something are, in my opinion, free riders. Spouses of those on active duty get a pass, for reasons that should not require explanation.

DD-214 Fraudsters

I am hearing that basically, people who get out of the service are being counselled to apply for diability benefits from the VA, whether or not they are actually disabled.

It seems to be massive fraud, aided and abetted by the armed forces.

"Thank you for your service"?? Maybe "why the fuck aren't you in prison for defrauding the government" is more truthful.

Truth in Satire

President* Donald Trump has declared a state of emergency on the U.S. border with Mexico and is deploying thousands of National Guard troops there to masturbate, eat MREs, and play with personal knives, sources confirmed today.

The soldiers will also be tasked with playing card games and generating PowerPoint briefing slides for generals in Washington, according to defense officials, who added the slides will likely lead to questions of overall government capacity on counter-narcotics operations and DEA/SOUTHCOM institutional dynamics, as if they give a shit about any of it.

I am not certain, though, how Trump's order works. He can't order the National Guard to do anything related to law enforcement. But the state governors can, because unless a Guard unit is "federalized", they obey the orders of the governor.

More to the point of the worry of the Pentagon is the fact that soldiers are not cops. Their job, when it comes to guns, is to go places, break things, and kill people. That's what soldiers do. In a civil setting, as was found nearly fifty years ago, shit can go sideways when soldiers are used for police functions.

Given Spanky's bellicosity, it's possible that if he insists on the Guard troops conducting armed patrols, that the Mexicans will deploy armed troops to watch. It takes very little thought to realize that may not go so well.

But rational thought is one thing that nobody has ever accused Spanky of doing.

UPDATE: As I suspected, Trump can't order jack-shit in regards to the Guard. He has to ask the governors. At least one has said "no".

Tanks for the Memories

An Army training film on infantry countermeasures against tanks.

Some of it is still good information, especially using small-arms fire to force the tank crews to button up. That's a problem that's being worked on. I'll bet that a gizmo to launch a cloud of small flechettes at a tank to disable those camera systems is already in the works.

A Possible Spartacus Moment, or Do You Want an Early Out from the Military?

Tell them that you identify as transgendered.

New transgender recruits to the US military would be banned and the US defense secretary would have the power to remove those currently serving, under the terms of a new memo from the White House described to reporters.

The Trump administration has not yet sent the directive, which takes the form of a two-and-a-half page memo, to military leaders. But its outline calls for the Pentagon to implement the new ban in six months.

Ashton Carter and the Joint Chiefs Should be Shot at Dawn

If there is any truth to this:

The Pentagon is blocking the return of UK permanent resident Shaker Aamer and two other longtime Guantánamo Bay detainees for whom the US Department of State has completed diplomatic deals to transfer home, the Guardian has learned.

American and UK diplomats reached an agreement in late 2013 for the return of Aamer, who has spent more than 13 years at the infamous detention facility without charge, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the understanding.

But even as the White House pledged to make his case a priority after a personal plea from David Cameron, Barack Obama’s defense secretaries have played what one official called “foot-dragging and process games” to let the deals languish.

If that is at all true, then they are violating the Constitution. The President is the C-in-C; Carter's choice, and those of his generals, is to obey or resign. Anything else should result in, well, the Redcoats had a way of dealing with that.

Are You Using Military Network to View This Post?

If so, you can be pretty damn sure that your visit here was logged by DARPA. Hell, everything you do on a military network is being tracked by DARPA.

Doesn't mean that your CO knows about reading this blog, which he or she would probably regard as being borderline seditious, but if they want to really check into what you're doing on line, they have the tools.

Have a nice day.

"This Ship Was Built to Flee, So You'd Better Know How."

At least one writer is celebrating the contract to award construction of Littoral Combat Ships, even though the ships are being built to commercial specifications, not military specs.

I know that some folks will point out that the Navy has not fought a red-on-blue ship-to-ship fight in 65 years. That misses the point.

A warship is built to go into harm's way, other than some exceptions like PT boats (which were made of wood and ran on high-octane aviation gasoline). The LCS seems more like a PT boat than an ocean-going warship. The LCSs will be able to go very fast over fairly short distances. They will not have the survivability nor the crew size to take damage of any consequence. So not only will an LCS not be able to take damage and keep on fighting, it may not even be able to continue to float.

This is not a concern that evaporated when Japan surrendered. The USS Stark was hit by two Exocet missiles and the USS Samuel B. Roberts hit a mine, both in the Persian Gulf, and both ships survived. USS Cole took a direct hit from 700lbs of explosives which detonated next to the hull and stayed afloat.

The LCS is a fighting ship with a glass jaw, designed to engage forces equipped with only small arms. They probably should be handed over to the Coast Guard.

Yeah, Like Nobody Saw That Coming

The CO of the USS Enterprise has been fired.

The officers who were commanding the Enterprise and who commanded the strike group also may be in a bit of hot water, even though they reportedly ordered him to knock that shit off.

I don't get what he was doing. I served under a number of XOs and they all understood that their role was to be the ship's disciplinarian, the officer who made sure that everyone else toed the line and to pour lava-like scorn and abuse on those who didn't measure up. None of them acted like comedians or "good-time Charlies" while on the ships. The only one I know of who displayed a sense of humor limited that to closed door meetings with the CO and the department heads.

Stupid Naval Aviator Tricks

The Captain of the USS Enterprise, while he was the Executive Officer, directed and produced a series of raunchy/soft porn movies.

Not exactly what one would call a career-enhancing move.

Send in the Littoral Combat Ships!

Whenever there is a crisis in the world, the carriers get sent:

President Obama and South Korea’s president agreed Tuesday night to hold joint military exercises as a first response to North Korea’s deadly shelling of a South Korean military installation, as both countries struggled for the second time this year to keep a North Korean provocation from escalating into war.

The exercise will include sending the aircraft carrier George Washington and a number of accompanying ships into the region, both to deter further attacks by the North and to signal to China that unless it reins in its unruly ally it will see an even larger American presence in the vicinity.

A carrier is the "big stick". A LCS is comparatively a small twig, somewhere between a FFG and a PG, especially since the FFG-7s were pretty much neutered to being even less capable than the 1052s that were retired 15 years ago.

The problem, of course, is that the carrier force is slowly diminishing over time. They are hellaciously expensive to build and operate, especially when one factors in the costs of the aircraft. The first models of F-4s probably cost less than two million dollars a copy in 1960. That would be roughly $15 million today. In comparison, a F/A-18F Super Hornet costs $60 million and a F-35C will cost somewhere between $100 million and $200 million a copy, depending on which source you believe.*

Then again, the Navy had well over 20 carriers in 1960, most of which were left over from the Second World War. Now, the Navy has 11 with at least one in a multi-year refueling and overhaul at any one time. 10 available carriers means that there is, at most, five deployed at any one time, as the others are just returning from deployment, getting ready to deploy or undergoing intermediate maintenance. A "port and starboard" operating schedule is incredibly hard on the crews. 10 carriers properly means only three or four are deployed, so there is at least a smidgen of reserve capability.

The big ship-small ship debate has been going on since the dawn of our Republic. Small ships have their uses. But there are times when sending a flotilla of small ships is like bringing a BB gun to a real gunfight. Small ships don't send much of a message, which is why when there is trouble in the world, one of the first question that gets asked in Fort Fumble and in the West Wing is: "Where are the carriers now?"

______________________________
* It is worth remembering that the F-22, at $200 million a copy (or less) was canceled in favor of the "cheaper" F-35.

Two Years?

It takes the Navy two years to go from commissioning a ship to sending it out on its first cruise? Given that warships typically serve less than 30 years, that's a fair piece of its operational life just to get ready to go.

Another thought: The USS Sterett has 39 officers and 275 sailors. Criminy, back in the day, only nuclear cruisers had that many officers. A 1052 FF had about 17 officers and 230 sailors, though, when a LAMPS det was embarked, that went to 21 and 250. If the officer count on the Sterett includes the helicopter pilots, say six or so, that means that is still has 33 officers in ships company.

By comparison, the Leahy and Daniels class CGs had 27 officers and about 430 sailors on them. Does anyone know what all of those officers are doing on the Sterett?

"It's Not Torture When America Does It"

I've read a number of blog entries recently wherein the writers are castigating the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times for waffling on referring to waterboarding as "torture" once the news broke that the CIA was waterboarding prisoners, with the express authorization of the Bush Administration. The information that those papers declined to call waterboarding "torture" is set out in a study that was done by a number of students at Harvard and published by the Harvard Kennedy School.

The study is not very long and it is available in PDF format here. Take the time to read it for yourself.

The study also looked at the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Predictably, the WSJ never referred to waterboarding as torture, unless another nation did it. Neither did USA Today.

The track record of the reporters and news editors of both the NY Times and LA Times is pretty consistent: When other nations waterboard people, it is torture. When the United States government waterboards people, then it isn't torture. To the LA Times' news staff, waterboarding was torture, except during a period of the Philippine Insurrection (when US Army soldiers waterboarded insurrectos) and after 2003. The NY Times' news staff began referring to waterboarding as torture in the 1930s; there was a dip in their so categorizing waterboarding as torture during the Vietnam War and then, like everyone else, after 2003.

The opinion pieces at both papers, since 2002, tend to sort of to refer to waterboarding as torture, but clearly referring to the practice as torture didn't take hold at the LA Times until the Bush Administration was very much a flock of lame ducks.

The study gives the readers of the mainstream media a clear reason to distrust their coverage, especially when the story is about government practices.[1] Hypothetically speaking, everyone would find the practice of having sex with young lambs to be repugnant. But it seems clear that if government were to engage in lamb-fucking, that the news staffs of the NY Times, the LA Times and USA Today would then describe having sex with lambs as maybe "ethically dubious" or "harsh treatment of livestock."[2]

I deliberately used the term "mainstream media" in the previous paragraph, for I have no doubt that if the authors of the studies expanded their work to cover every major city newspaper in this country, along with the newsweeklies and the broadcast/cable news operation,[3] they would find the same pattern.

Waterboarding is not the only example. If you were to read back over the coverage of the time four years ago when Dick Cheney allegedly downed a few beers and then, in fact, shot another man in the face with a shotgun, you will find no shortage of news stories that referred to the shooting as a "peppering". If you were to accidentally shoot another person in the face while bird hunting, any press reports would have no problem calling it a "shooting".[4] But the rules are different for powerful government officials.

It was once a maxim that the only way a reporter should look at government is "down". It is clear from the Kennedy School study that reporters and news editors have transformed the idea of "objective reporting" into functioning as stenographers for the government (though moreso when the government is run by Republicans, I suspect). The entire McChrystal Affair came about because McChrystal and his staffies ran into a reporter who was not playing the role of a government mouthpiece; there are plenty of reporters who view being a government mouthpiece as their job description (I'm looking at you, Laura Logan).[5]

Those reporters are falling down on the job. If all they are going to do is act as hagiographers to the powerful, then why do we even need the First Amendment? The press has been "dining out" for far too long on the efforts of a a few reporters for the Washington Post 37 years ago (the Watergate scandal). They need to stop admiring those reporters and start performing like them. or they do this country no good if they are as diligent and energetic as a stenographer from Pravda or TASS.

[1] I will presume that the same pattern applies to the practices of American corporations. It certainly applied to the RC Church until a critical mass of child-abuse cases broke through to the Boston Globe in the 1990s.
[2] The WSJ would have no problems with lamb-fucking only if a Republican administration was doing it.
[3] My comment in FN2 goes for Fox News, as well.
[4] You'd also be charged with some crime.
[5] Predictably, the reaction of the Pentagon was to crack down on reporters' access to top officials, not to have a serious talk with the brass about loyalty and deference to civilian authority. "Shooting the messenger" is still in vogue at Fort Fumble.

"The Only Thing New in the World is the History You Don't Know."

Harry S. Truman said that. I remembered that quotation when I read this story in today's New York Times about the U.S. hiring out security to warlords in Afghanistan.

Is there anyone in Fort Fumble or in the White House who has any frakking idea whatsoever who they are dealing with over there? Do they know anything the recent history of Afghanistan?

Those are serious questions.

For if they did, they would know that Afghanistan was effectively carved up by a series of warlords after the Soviet Army left in 1989. The national government controlled only the area around Kabul. The warlords, hell, any group which had some AK-47s and could set up barricades on a highway did so and extorted "taxes" and "tolls" from travelers and truckers. The warlords' militias battled each other for influence and control of territory.

It was because of the rampant corruption and anarchy of the post-Soviet warlord era that the Taliban arose (with the help of Pakistan's ISI) and why such a group of brutal medieval religious goons were welcomed by the people of Afghanistan.

And, because our own government is aiding and abetting a rebirth of Warlordistan, w/they are sowing the seeds for a return to power by the Taliban.

Harry Truman was right.

Bring Back the Draft

And then we can have armed forces that only contain heterosexual males, since they seem to be completely incapable of keeping their filthy paws off anything they want to fuck.

Problem is, of course, the military has been unable to completely fill its ranks with het males for the last thirty years, so if "unit cohesion" and "good order and discipline" are what's needed, bring back the draft.

(After all, what's a few fraggings between friends?)

The Headsman Comes By on Fridays

At least it seems that's when the Navy releases news of the firings of commanding officers. This time, it is the CO of NAS Pensacola for "inappropriate conduct", which could be anything from a DWI charge to aggravated assault.

I suspect that the Navy plays the old "release bad news on Fridays" game, just like everyone else. I don't know how well that really works; the old dead-tree edition of Navy Times was a weekly paper. Even then, it sometimes took a month for it to get everywhere, so if one story was a week behind, nobody much cared.

And the Bubbleheads Will Go Nuts

The Pentagon on Monday notified Congress that women will be able to join submarine crews within 30 legislative working days, making good on the wishes of top Navy commanders announced last fall.

I would expect that the bulk of outrage will come primarily from the wives of the submariners, who will imply that their husbands are irrepressible hose-monsters who would all fuck an alligator if someone else held it down for them. The retired submariners will have something to say, too. The ones on active duty will largely have the good sense to shut up, salute and make it work.

Note, though, that from one side of the planet to the other, restrictions on women are always justified because men cannot control themselves. Men must really be such morally weak and pathetic creatures that women have to circumscribe their behavior and careers to avoid men going all caveman on women.

Killing Marines

Some of the well water at Camp Lejune, over a thirty year period (at least) was contaminated by hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel from a fuel farm next to the wells.

Of course, by the time that the Marine Corps and the Departments of the Navy and Defense are willing to accept that there was a provable problem, everyone who drank the well water will be dead.

I gather that Marine loyalty only goes so far.

A Career Limiting Move

From Navy Times:

The commander of the Charleston Naval Weapons Station has been reassigned after he was arrested on a charge of soliciting a prostitute.

That'll impress the living shit out of the O-7 selection board.

F-35 in Trouble?

The program could be in some real trouble:

Close on the heels of reports that the Pentagon plans to cut F-35 orders over the next several years, an internal Navy study leaked last week drove a new wave of speculation in the defense and aerospace industries.

The study, by the Navy’s aviation arm, says the cost to buy and operate that service’s version of the F-35 will be dramatically higher than predicted — 40 percent more than existing aircraft — and will put a serious squeeze on future budgets.

The defender of the F-35 program, who was quoted in the article, works for LockMart, the maker of the F-35, but you'll have to read the article carefully to discern that.

Can they make anything these days?