Hezbollah Rocket Boyz

"The purpose of the [Hezbollah] rockets is not to decorate south Lebanon."

And boy, do they have rockets....probably more than ten thousand of them.

The escalation and nature of the ongoing Hezbollah-Israeli combat didn’t happen by chance. Patrick Devenny (formerly with the now-defunct Moonbat Central) foretold much of what is now going on in the Middle East in the Winter ’06 edition of the Quarterly of the Middle East Forum, including the Syrian and Iranian complicity. His conclusion:

Hezbollah will maintain its rocket arsenal as long as Iran continues its violent opposition to Israel's right to exist, the Assad regime retains control in Syria, and Hezbollah continues to leverage its militia for political power inside Lebanon. Hezbollah may find the threat of its arsenal outweighs its use.

Read it all HERE.

I wonder if Israel is now working towards an early deployment of the THEL-M instead of waiting around until ’08?

Sing Hadji Girl Loud and Proud!

It occurred to me that someone not in possession of a reasonable amount of mental agility might claim that the parallels between Hadji Girl and Napalm Sticks to Kids in my earlier post are evidence of Iraq being ‘Just Like Vietnam’.

For those too dense or lazy to see this kind of GI song-writing spans history, or do your own research, let me point out Strafe the Town and Kill All the People dates back to Korea.

Let My People Sing

These kind of songs are only part of a spectrum of music and poetry that comes from the front lines. As Les Cleveland (1984) wrote so well:

These can be analysed as improvisations suited to the wartime, frontier-style, male-dominant, community life of soldiers in camps and bivouacs. Because the heightening of group cohesion is valuable for military morale, any tendencies towards irreverence or idiosyncratic expression which their content exhibits are tolerated under the mantle of comic licence. This gives the folklore of soldiers (or for that matter of any comparable occupational group faced with hazardous and uncomfortable work conditions) an important integratory, social control function. The democratic soldier can accept the discomfort and personal risks involved in service for the State as long as he is permitted to grumble, protest and joke about his fate, to ridicule his leaders and to assert his essential autonomy and personal dignity, even at the cannon's mouth.

The upper-echelon’s response to Hadji Girl is pretty much what I would expect from a bunch of ‘careerists’, ‘managers’ and ‘executives’. It is, in the long run, also subversive to keeping good order and discipline.

This is the Marine Corps? Where are the freaking LEADERS?

A F***ing Song. Ooohh the Horror

(Hat Tip Little Green Footballs)

Well I hope some PC ninny at DoD really didn't issue a statement like CAIR indicates in their press release, but it is probably too much to hope for.
So,in the interest of providing some perspective to this NON-STORY, get some historical background here. It took me five minutes to find, and it looks like a great jumping off place for more searching.

Here's just a couple of highlights:

...Like soldiers from time immemorial they sang of epic drinking bouts and encounters with exotic young women...

...Songs provided a means for the expression of protest, fear and frustration, of grief and of longing for home....

We know that these songs were occasionally played on AFVN Radio and they were probably also played on the "bullshit net" which the troops operated illegally on field radios. The extremely high rate of troop mobility meant that these songs spread rapidly.

...Others display a kind of black humor mixed with violence, in which, in the words of Les Cleveland, the thing most abhorred is embraced with a kind of lunatic enthusiasm: "Strafe the Town and Kill the People," "As We Came Around and Tried To Get Some More," and "Napalm Sticks to Kids"...

There are quite a few 'fair use' audio clips as well.

UPDATE @2307: Just searched for "Napalm Sticks to Kids" and this popped right up:

Napalm Sticks to Kids

Bomb Him Some More Please

“Al-Zarqawi and Others, Including Children, er, um, Wife and Child, Killed”

It must be kind of hard to write headlines for this stuff when you’re dealing with people and a culture who don’t ‘draw the lines’ like we do in the West. This confusion will probably propel the nutjob conspiracy machines for a while at least.

The ever-on-top Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs, on a tip from one of his "minions", points out how TIME gives no particular emphasis to the fact that Al-Zarqawi’s ‘wife’ was sixteen, and their child was a year and a half.

Do the math. Yeah, I know….Eeewwwwww!

At least they didn’t try to hide her age, unlike “THE” Times, who wrote (emphasis mine):

Al-Zarqawi’s second wife Israa, in her late teens, and their 18-month-old baby, Abdul Rahman, died in the strike, Jordanian officials told The Times.

I don’t know how it works in Britain these days, but I doubt “Your Honor she was in her late teens” works any better there than it would here.

As the Father of two Daughters, I’d really appreciate it if CENTCOM could somehow see it in their hearts to set ole’ al-Zarqawi’s corpse in the middle of a target range and bomb him some more.

War with Iran?

Probably one of a series

Instapundit asks:

SO DOES THE FACT THAT BUSH IS HALTING DEPOSITS TO THE STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE mean that we shouldn't expect a shooting war with Iran any time soon?

No.
It just means don't expect a long one.

Russo-Iranian Torpedo

The ballyhooed ‘sonar-evading’, super-fast “Iranian” torpedo caused a brief bubble of water-cooler talk in the aerospace sector when it was announced a few days ago. At MilitaryOutpost.com is a good ‘public consumption’ summarization of the weapon type, probable origin, and where it fits in to the ‘threat’ equation of the U.S. Navy.

Russia seems to be of two minds as to whether or not the source of the Iranian weapon is a Russian design.

I have my own opinions as to how we will neuter the Iranian Navy if so required. If I had a super-secret blog buddy, I would ask them to keep the info in a sealed envelop under a set of Funk & Wagnals encyclopedia, until if and when it happens. Thus, when the time comes the world might marvel at my prescient ability…or more likely point out my amazing grasp of the obvious.

OK, It’s a War on Jihadism

But the root of modern Jihadism is?
Hmmm……could it be “Arabism”?

Instapundit, directs us to an excellent article (April 14, 2006) by Jonathan Rauch: my earlier post calling this war as essentially one against “Arabism”, which if not the current driving force behind Jihadism, is certainly the incubator that allows it to fester.

Is the Battle Against Islam or "Arabism"?

A Most Important Question

In my last post I referred to this interesting article written by Brigitte Gabriel and presented in February of this year to a forum known as "The Intelligence Summit". In this article she describes how we in the US are hated and targetted for terror because we are the 'infidels', and (like so many others) calls Islam the real enemy in the War on Terror. Ms. Gabrielle's point of view is that of someone who escaped persecution in the Middle East:

My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. I learned at 10 years old the meaning of the word infidel. I had a crash course in survival not in girl scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13 I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night waiting to be slaughtered and by the age of 20 I had buried most of my friends who were killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York, or Britons in London, we were Arab Christians living in Lebanon.

I also referred to an equally compelling comment on the article from someone who is in my extended circle of military e-mail 'correspondents', and that I would post it if I received permission. I received that permission yesterday on the condition of 1- anonymity, 2- that I not identify his employer, and 3- stress that this is his personal views only. Consider #2 & #3 "done".

If I just posted the comment as is, references to his background alone would reveal the author: instantly to quite a few people and in about 5 minutes to anyone with a passing interest and access to a search engine. To meet the condition #1 above. I have redacted a minimum number of words in the text.

This individual takes a slightly more narrow view than "Islam is the Enemy":

A little editorial response from one who has spent over a decade working the "Middle East", ultimately becoming the Deputy Division Chief for Middle East Policy in XXXXXXX and also a tour as the Ops Group Commander and Installation Commander for XXXXXXXX XXXXXX.

What she describes is right on track for Lebanon in the 80s and 90s. What is left out is the Arab Vs Arab struggle for power that virtually destroyed Lebanon. There was horrendous blood on all sides. One of the worst atrocities was a Christian attack on several Muslim villages aided (or at least overlooked) by the Israelis. It cost Ariel Sharon his Job as the head of the IDF.

I have said repeatedly that this a struggle for the control of Islam that is now engulfing the whole world and that alone may ultimately cause this to eventually be referred to as WWIII. Also remember that Arab cultures embrace power and the raw, brutal exercise of it (hence mostly dictators and Monarchs in their governments).
However the real majority of Muslims (there are many more Non Arab Muslims that there are Arab Muslims) want what everyone wants, peaceful prosperity and respect for their culture and practices. Unfortunately they are not leading the effort to confront radical Islam for fear of lack of support in the West where the real power in the world has been focused since WWII.

Take a look at Vietnam, Somalia, Angola, Cambodia, Afghanistan with the Russians and where is a strong Western dictated outcome. Our (US/EU) attachment to negotiations and appeasement have been weak responses in their eyes and only embolden those, beginning with Iran in 1979, who think we are spineless and will cave to threats and pressure. So are we in a mess, yes, and the battle is for control of Islam.

The US and Europe and the rest of the world must choose sides and through economic, political and military support insure the radicals do not achieve any more objectives.

I think it was Rumsfeld who said we are in for a long hard slog......well we are and surrender is not an option.....

I agree. The game theorist in me also tells me we should first attempt to address the problem as an Arabist one. If we're wrong, we can always expand the scope later.

Stupid Pirate Tricks Part II

Well the Navy released the first of the photos from the USS Cape St George's and USS Gonzalez' run-in with Somali pirates. I know they're still calling them 'suspected' pirates, but tell me this: what use are these to fishermen 25 miles out from land?

Now, I favor heavy a heavy line with a medium tippet and fly when I go fishing. I wonder how far those 'fishermen' could cast using one of these? Maybe they would surround the fish in their skiffs and lob RPGs into balled schools and kind of shock them like Uncle Bubba Al-Salaam used to do in the old days with dynamite and carbide bombs?

Naw.... I don't buy into any of that 'fishermen' crap. And from the looks of things, the Navy didn't either.

Stupid Pirate Tricks

Remember the pirate attack on the Seabourn Spirit? After the event made world headlines the UN asked all navies operating near Somalia to aggressively work against piracy in the area.

According to this AP report , at about dawn today the USS Cape St. George and the USS Gonzalez intercepted a 30-foot fishing vessel towing several smaller craft about 25 miles off the coast of Somalia and attempted a ‘routine’ boarding. The ‘fishing vessel’ seemed to take exception to the effort and opened up with gunfire on the US ships. This was...a bad idea. If even the smallest of the two US warships accidentaly ran over a 30-foot boat, they might not even notice it. The graphic below illustrates the relative size of the Gonzalez and the 'fishing' boat (that little red spot).


The pirates, including several wounded, were taken into custody. There were no US casualties.

If pictures are forthcoming from the Navy, I’ll link to them in an update.

Well Done Cape St George and Gonzalez!

I would be remiss if I did not at least point out in passing that the Somalian piracy problem is just another legacy of the Clinton Administration's cut-and-run action after the 'Black Hawk Down' travesty.

A side note of interest. The Serbian propaganda machine claimed the Serbs had sunk the USS Gonzalez during the Kosovo crisis (incredibly, a link is still available here). I wonder how they explained it when the Gonzalez made port there in 1993(Update...er..2003)?

Assassination: Another clear candidate for the Exterminator.

Moron ups ‘reward ‘ for killing Danish cartoonist
(Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin )

Really! Sometimes I think the worst thing about being a slow-to-take-offense free and democratic society is that our peaceful inclinations are always misread by our potential enemies as evidence that we are ‘weak’ and won’t fight under any circumstances. How many times has the United States ended up fighting a war, because we were pushed too far?

Let’s see, for starters :

1. It is why we were ‘late’ to enter World War I after initially declaring absolute neutrality.

and…

2. Why a ‘pacifist’ national mood made FDR support the Allies surreptitiously against the Axis for so long. Had Japan not blundered and attacked us, would we have ever entered the war or would all of Europe be German-speaking?

I hope I am wrong, but I think we could be looking back in 5 to 10 years and realize that since September 11, 2001, world events to-date have been a precursor to another conflict that could rival WWI and WWII in scope. It all depends if the ‘other side’ wises up to the idea the West can only be pushed so far.

To finish on an ‘up-note’: our tolerance and desire for peace seems to always make the ambitious losers of the world overplay their hands too quickly, and that allows us to overcome, usually at a great cost that could otherwise have been avoided. (OK, so that very last part was kind of a downer)

Assassination: An Underappreciated Tool in the Toolbox

Assassination is a Facet of The Military Element of Power
The recent announcement of a large reward for the murder of a Danish cartoonist by a ‘cleric’ in Pakistan highlights a dynamic in the current war against Islamofascists that isn’t being discussed openly in the West. Hopefully it is being discussed privately among the Western leadership.

The subject is assassination and subversion: more specifically, the selective assassination of certain so-called 'leaders' calling for the destruction of the West, and the active subversion of their power structure. These ‘leaders’ are actively seeking to destroy Western Civilization, and impose dhimmitude upon the West. Their selective death and/or disappearance would frustrate and inhibit potential replacements. This will do nothing about the burning hate behind the remaining fascist’s ideology, but it will ensure that their hate stays within a tighter circle of fanatics...because it is a lot harder to foment trouble when you can’t scream at the top of your lungs about it.

How to (Mostly) Stem the Tide of Islamofascism
It seems to me quite sensible to develop a coherent strategy for dealing with these vermin as individuals without having to go to the trouble and cost of conventional warfare for the following practical reasons:

1. If action must be taken, the elimination of a relatively small number of troublemakers is a far more moral and desirable option than placing large populations under the threat of total warfare. Taking this approach would not necessarily pre-empt use of general warfare for other compelling reasons.

2. Assassination would more fully exploit a Western advantage in asymmetrical warfare. It capitalizes on the weaknesses of the Islamofascist organization along tribal lines. Decapitation of organizational leadership creates greater internal friction among factions and potential successors in these kinds of groups as compared to democratic organizations with tried-and-true formal rules of succession.

3.Assassination will create distrust between the heretofore cooperative elements, such as the different allied organizations operating under the Al Qaeda umbrella

4. The current aversion to assassination as a military option is a relatively modern phenomenon. Serious consideration of the assassination option will shed new light on the flawed logic that proscribed it in the first place.

To preempt any silliness asserting that we shouldn’t use assassination as a tool because someone else could try and use it against us, let me point out that they have already tried to use it.