F-22 Critics: Not What They Used to Be (If They Ever Were)

“Spook 86” at In from the Cold has a most excellent fisking (Worth the Money?) of a recent opinion piece in Jane’s Defense Weekly by two agents of one of my least favorite domestic Non-State Actors: the Center for Defense Information. It has the honor of being among the least favorites because unlike most other anti-military establishment policy groups, it hacks away at Defense Policy under the guise of ‘saving’ it, and it seems like CDI has been against every “advanced” air weapon system that has come down the ‘pike. As I’ve mentioned before, CDI also seems to be one of the preferred megaphones for military and defense malcontents who think they had a better idea but “nobody will listen”.

The only contributions I would add to Spook 86’s point-by-point discrediting of the Sprey and Stevenson piece is that you can see a non-subscription copy of the article referenced at the CDI site here. For the time being, you can find additional Powerpoint briefings at the root of the article here if you want a good laugh.

Sprey and Stevenson’s cackling of course is refuted by the F-22 operators.

About the only thing EVERYONE agrees on is that if we do buy the F-22, we aren’t buying them in the numbers they’re needed. Blame Congress: their hand has been the one on the funding ‘start-stop’ button. And don’t be deceived by the now-standard ‘too costly’ critique. This is now an all too familiar game plan, repeated often enough to be included in Professor Mac’s Acquisition 101 course:



A Minor Nit
Sprey and Stevenson take a stab at 'clever' by posing a question to the effect of something like "Will the F-22 be the US's Sturmvogel"? An analogy to the Me-262 as a 'superior plane bought in too few numbers' to make a difference. The answer of course is this: it depends on whether or not the naysayers succeed in further slashing the number of F-22s. This bit of cleverness also then begs the question as to who is playing the role of the modern-day Hitler - whose dalliances in the development and mission delayed Me-262 production until it was too late to be a major factor in the outcome of the war? Would that be CDI and their ilk?

Hey, It wasn't me that brought up the Nazis!

Footnote 1: It is an odd coincidence that Sprey shows up on my radar at this time. I just finished reading a pretty decent book on the A-10 (and am preparing a review of it as a low priority behind my review of the AF 'force reshaping' pitch) where the author fairly gushes over Mr. Sprey.

Footnote 2. Sprey is player #2 of the Fighter Mafia that CDI has trotted out on this issue. The first was Colonel Riccione, who was pretty much saying the same things about the F-22 for CDI a few years back (maybe still?).

Air Force 'Force Reshaping' Sales Pitch. Part 3

What we’ve covered so far:

Part 1: “OK people, listen up. We’re going to fight this War on Terrorism and win, OK? That’s a given. And we’re going to do as much as we can to take care of everyone that will be affected by some changes we need to make to ensure our future. But what this is really about is making sure we have the tools and resources we’ve planned for so we can accomplish our mission in the future.” (and everything before the “but” is bulls***)

Part 2: “Let’s ignore the fact that when you stop reducing numbers of people the impact of pay raises on total personnel costs becomes apparent over time. This net cost growth per person was hidden in the aggregate cost as long as the forces size was being reduced. Also, don’t talk about how when you start moving your people around, use them in combat, and personnel costs increase. DO talk about personnel costs in an as abstract as possible way.” Thus, the AF’s ‘big idea’ amounts to this: “If we can reduce rising personnel costs (that Congress had intentionally increased over time) by ‘laying off’ the very people Congress was trying to take of in the first place, then Congress will give us more money for hardware.”

And now…..Part 3
The AF, having misrepresented (hell – Ignored!) the drivers behind a apparent [update: corrected sentence to how it should have read in the first place] rise in personnel costs, continues to mischaracterize “Today’s Fiscal Environment” through oversimplification and studious avoidance of identifying other root cost drivers. It seems as if they believe that if they oversimplify for the audience (the same people most in the know AND affected by this ‘reshaping’) the troops won’t notice two things:

1. The course the AF has chosen wouldn’t be ‘necessary’ if someone had headed off the budget train wreck when they saw it coming and…
2. This course of action is hardly the best one. It is just the easiest and most politically expedient one that a myopic leadership is willing to employ.

Caution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unless you are a “bean counter”, comprehend the nuances of acquisition, and/or grasp the importance of logistics, your eyes may glaze over in this session

Beginning with the next two slides (8 & 9) in the ‘Fiscal Reality’ section of the brief…..



We see the briefing now attempts to illustrate a relationship between increased operating costs and age of the aircraft.

It is true there is a relationship, but these charts do not show it. How can we tell? Simple: Chart 9 merely shows the cost to operate aircraft in average ‘millions of dollars per aircraft’ over a very diverse aircraft fleet being used in very different ways and at varying operational tempos.

Assuming the AF chart makers still have integrity (not a stretch…yet), let us also assume (without any evidence to support the assumption) the charts are normalized to factor out the increased cost of consumables such as fuels and lubricants (you may have heard about the rise in cost of petroleum products pacing the cost of living these days). Let us then assume the costs shown represent only those costs incurred to keep the aircraft in a Mission Capable state reflected by the Mission Capable Rate (MCR) shown. The really big thing missing from Slide 8 is that you do NOT see is any indication as to how much the USE RATE (flying hours/year) is affecting total operating costs.

If the chart did reflect the impact of the use rate, the ‘Costs’ would be expressed in terms of average cost per aircraft flight hour. It is entirely possible that the chart makers specifically avoided showing that statistic because it could actually be dropping, because it costs X amount of dollars to fix malfunctions whether you operate the aircraft or not. If a plane is flying longer or more sorties than usual (common in wartime scenarios), the failures & fixes per flight hour and the repair costs can go up or down for several reasons, including dependence on where the aircraft is in its lifecycle. Towards the end of the lifecycle is where the age of hardware comes into play as an increasing cost driver.

Physical age in years doesn’t necessarily mean much to failure rates, while the amount of use (flying hours) during those years is meaningful. Physical age is more relevant to the costs of repair, because part obsolescence, economic order quantities, and supplier business models all play a role. This is now a particularly acute problem with electronic parts. Weapons system acquisition programs now have to make many more decisions at the start of a program as to whether to:

1. pay for the continued production overhead of an existing part,
2. forecast a lifetime buy quantity to purchase and warehouse for future needs or,
3. implement a preplanned system redesign program to keep the technology fresh.

These questions were once a major concern more towards the middle or end of a weapon’s lifecycle, but now contractors must demonstrate a robust approach to deal with obsolescence just to be awarded the contract in the first place.

So now we know what the relevance of age is to cost. Why didn’t the AF brass direct the chart makers to show what parts of the fleet are the problem instead of presenting a broad-brush and meaningless fleet average? Is the whole fleet the problem? Is the Air Force throwing away manpower so they can afford to buy a “totally new Air Force”? Aren’t some types are older than others?

To get the answers, let us now dig into the details behind the AF’s aircraft age chart. Using publicly available numbers (pdf file) , here’s what the average age of Air Force aircraft looks like broken down by type:

Anyone familiar with the Air Force would see no surprises as to which aircraft types are oldest. However the average age by type doesn’t reflect the impact of each type on the fleet average, because each type has a different impact based on the percentage of the fleet the type represents. More airplanes = more impact. This could be a positive impact by many young systems or a negative impact from many old systems. ‘Racking and Stacking’ by relative weights (average age of type times the percentage of fleet the type represents) we can demonstrate which aircraft types have the most impact (for better or worse) on the ‘fleet average’ number as shown here:

By just looking at the plot above, you will observe that by an overwhelming margin, a relative few aircraft types have the most impact on the total fleet average age. Looking at the top ten “age drivers” we see that they represent over five and a half times the impact the remaining 31 aircraft types combined have on the overall fleet average age.


The Top Ten ‘Impacters’ are mostly what I would have expected. The only surprise to me is the T-1 ‘Jayhawk’. Since that type isn’t very ‘old’ the AF must have bought more of them than I recalled. Clearly though, the ratio of ‘old’ to ‘new’ can be claimed to be 9 to 1. Note: The F-15 and F-16 fleets may be approaching ‘middle-age’ compared to the B-52, but with a ‘yank and bank’ history and a requirement to survive in the most hostile environments, fighters can be considered to age ‘faster’. Also, the secret to the long life of the B-52, (aside from the powers of nostalgia) has been its adaptation to roles that remove it from the highest threat operating environments; an option not available to fighters.
This list is a good stepping stone to introduce a few more detailed observations:

1. The T-1 fleet is relatively young and represents the 8th most numerous type. These aircraft drive the age curve to skew to the left, but are more than counterbalanced by all the old planes whose age skews the ‘average’ (such a meaningless term by itself) to the right.

2. A conscious decision to keep aging T-38 (Talon) and T-37 (Tweet) trainers has been made several times. The AF finds it cost-effective to perform ‘SLEP’(service life extension program) upgrades to them and fiddle with their flight envelopes to squeeze more life out of them than replace them. ‘Age’ as far as the Air Force is concerned is 'taken care of' with these aircraft

3. C-130s have been the workhorses since they’ve been fielded, they’re not getting any younger, the C-130Js aren’t being bought in the numbers they probably should be given the airframe service life they’re consuming, and the avionics upgrade program for the older models is experiencing ‘problems’.

4. B-52s. B-52s. Their true fleet mission-capable rates and maintenance costs over the last 20 or so years was/is hidden behind a little Congressionally-mandated requirement that co-located the attrition reserve fleet with the combat-coded aircraft. This allowed some operating units to rotate aircraft in and out of the CC pool and incur costs and downtime away from the O&M accounts. There’s not a lot of them (anymore) so their advanced age skews the average age higher, but their cost impact is (relatively) trivial. If they could survive in a high-threat environment, we could keep them almost forever. The AF is considering new Long Range Strike (LRS) options at this time, but whatever is decided, the LRS solution won’t be to replace the Buffs (Standoff Attack), it will be replacing the Bones (B-1s, Direct Attack)

As long as the AF decides to upgrade instead of buy new, we have to assume it is because it is cheaper to keep these systems than replace them, or the fight to get the money to replace them isn’t worth it.

This leaves us with just the REALLY big age/cost drivers to discuss:

1. The F-16 fleet is relatively young and is the most numerous type. The major reason the average age of the F-16 fleet isn’t higher is because many older models have been retired or ‘surplused’. The average age still includes a lot of old (for fighters) airframes with older avionics and other systems though. Future survivability concerns have to factor into the obsolescence equation, but the AF doesn’t really talk about that as much as they should. It is much easier to talk about ‘old’ vs. ‘new and improved’ than to explain radar cross-section and detectability.

2. The F-15 fleet is chronologically 30%+ older than the F-16 and probably much older average flying hours-wise. And there’s A LOT of them. On some of them, the systems on board are another half to full-generation behind the latest F-16s, so the F-22 (partial) replacement is sorely needed.

3. We really DO need a tanker replacement….BAD. They are old, the oldest are really old, and newer engines or not, we’ve flown the wings off them keeping the rest (especially the short-legged fighters and the big airlifters) of the Air Force flying. [We would have had one on the way too, if McCain hadn’t decided to get all pissy on the acquisition strategy. Never underestimate the power of ‘manhood’ issues with self-important Congress-people who want to be something more. The Darlene Druyun flameout didn’t help either.]

So we see the ‘problem’ really isn’t fleet age, but the age of a relatively few aircraft types that make up a large proportion of the fleet. Why are these so ‘old’? Because the AF has failed to get several major acquisition program buy-in from Congress in the first place, or proper support of programs once launched (the AF has been particularly inept in keeping the F-22 sold). This has not been ALL the AF’s fault of course. Les Aspin (spit!) and the Clinton administration would be my number one villains in the complete disappearance of rationality from balancing need and cost in the budget process of the 90’s, with a complicit Congress squeezing every last dime from a non-existent ‘Peace Dividend’ coming in a close second. (we won’t talk here about how the departure from saneness actually began under Carter in the 1970’s – that was another travesty) This superpower-on-a-shoestring mentality only delayed ‘paying the piper, and the ‘piper’ charges interest.

The REAL Problem
If the AF insists that fleet age is the problem, then the problem reaches all the way back to 1973 where, according to chart 9 of the pitch, the fleet average age was only 9 years! I fault the current and prior AF leadership most for not making their case for more money to properly fund their slice of the defense responsibility. It seems either an odd form of cowardice, or complete lack of leadership has paralyzed the AF as an institution.

That an AF leadership would choose to throw a large portion of the force on the street instead of calling attention to the mismanagement of the past even if it meant falling on their own swords is, in a word: disgusting.

Speaking of AF leadership making their case, here’s the next slide (slide 10) of the brief.

Powerpoint Warriors Attack!
“Budget Growth is Slowing”? Now Ladies and Gentlemen, THIS is “professional grade” shtick in powerpoint! The uninitiated may not appreciate the subtle elegance of it, so a short tour is in order.

1. Note the use of a non-zero baseline that accentuates the ‘10% Growth’ side of the slide. Starting where it does just about doubles the apparent steepness of the ‘growth’ slope.

2. Note the slope of the two arrows and how closely the left arrow matches the growth to-date. What is with the slope of the arrow on the ‘projected’ side? A cynical mind might think the slide creator was attempting an optical illusion. If one matched the arrows slope on the right as closely as the one on the left, it would look like almost the same slope with a little saw-tooth dip at FY07.

3. Remember the left side is what HAS happened, the right side is somebody’s “idea” of what is GOING to happen. What did the left side look like when it was just an “idea”?

4. The chart is in “then year” dollars! To give you an idea how this inflates the number, $1 in 2005 is the same as the following in 2000 dollars

$1.13 using the Consumer Price Index
$1.21 using the nominal GDP per capita
$1.27 using the relative share of GDP

Or in layman's terms, even if there was no real growth between 2000 and 2005, the chart would still reflect between 13 to 27 percent growth over the same timeframe.
A more appropriate title of the above slide would have been: “AF Leadership 101 – Avoiding Real Budget Issues While Assuming Risk as a Long Term Conflict Resolution Strategy”. But I guess that would have been a tad too long to fit in the slide header.

And of course, NONE of this explains why the AF chooses to eliminate people instead of making the case for more money. We will examine the AF’s reasons in Part IV, but first here is ‘Question 7” where the AF chooses to start talking about the ‘bottom-line’. Not much of a segue, but hey!-It’s their spiel, and they’re sticking with it.



There’s a couple of fine points to be made here.

1. The AF’s whacking the civilian force is small yet still somewhat overstated: many if not most of the civilian reduction will be taken care of through normal attrition and retirements. They’re actually talking about having to increase hiring soon after the make their cuts. (Good luck getting anyone to come back after they’ve been jerked around.)
2. While the Guard and Reserve got a ‘pass’ the first two years, they get hit after FY07. This is after a lot of active duty folks got ‘purged’ and encouraged to go Guard and Reserve. I guess this is just the AF’s way of trying to ‘take care of people: some might get taken care of TWICE!

Note the last line at the bottom of slide 12. That will be my Pee Wee Herman (Everyone I know has a big "But") teaser for the next installment, where the AF inadvertently, yet brilliantly sums up the US military’s slide into ‘superpower-lite’ status before launching off into delusional flights of fancy about how everything will be better at the end of the yellow-brick road.

One Step For Man, One Step Back for Grammar

Vodkapundit has a post up about the latest 'revelation' concerning (a) man's first steps on the moon. Source Article HERE

High-tech detective work apparently has found the missing "a" in one of the most famous phrases ever spoken.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong's first words from the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, now can be confidently recast, according to the research, as, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

-"Research"? You call this research? Pfft!

First, there is a saying in web development that applies to any 'content providing' activity: "If the person can't find 'it' -- 'it' isn't there". Since none of us can find the 'missing a' with our ears, it wasn't spoken.

Second, I don't care how whiz-bang, or exotic a new and improved a pile of software is, if it is used to process a forty-plus year old chunk of audiotape, recorded in space, by a man working in a clumsy pressurized spacesuit, in an environment never before encountered by him or any other human being, as he plopped down 'to moon' off of a landing step -- it cannot be used to positively or even probably identify and discriminate the letter 'a', allegedly 'spoken' too fast to hear, from any other audible possibilities including a suppressed grunt, groan, hard swallow, or whatever.

And finally, as a ninth-grader who watched the event as it was transmitted to Earth, the original, accepted, and recognizable phrasing was so pure and so true to my heart, that sticking an unvoiced 'a' in the middle of it is akin to adding a few lines to the Gettysburg Address for laughs. Let the grammarians cavil over the differences between man and mankind, but to those of us who witnessed the images as we received them with those words, it was clear 'man' meant 'ANY man' and mankind meant 'ALL men'. So what if it isn't grammatically correct? It is great poetry!

The Lab Rat's Creed

Between work and personal life, I've had a hard time (like most people, so I won't bore you with the details) getting time to Blog. I'm still working on Part 3 of the AF Sales Pitch analysis, and hope to move through the rest of the brief soon.

In the meantime, here is a little something from the archives at work. Advanced military aircraft don't magically fly away when they roll off the assembly line the first time. The planes must be 'proven' before they fly. This is an old (20+ years) rambling called "The Lab Rat's Creed" that is truer than ever. It is making the rounds again on my current program (for, um, some unknown reason) and unless you're a Lab Rat, you've probably never seen it before.

The Lab Rats’ Creed

Boss,

We are lab rats. We’re proud of it. We support the program by building, maintaining and operating the lab, and that lab needs to be worked on by people that know the equipment. Who’s gonna do it … you? We have greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You have a luxury – the luxury of not knowing what we know. The lab has to perform just like the plane, and then some. And when it doesn’t, no management directive, no memo, or no amount of ranting and raving can fix it.

Other groups have the advantage of being specialists; they may know their system, or their hardware, or their software, or some other little piece of the overall puzzle. We, on the other hand, must know how everything fits together. We are the ones who integrate the pieces together and make it work. Some say that how it all comes together in the lab is proof of how great their original concept was to begin with. Actually, it’s a miracle that it comes together at all. And just remember, THE MIRACLE HAPPENS HERE!

Our very existence, while grotesque, dirty and often incomprehensible to you, is what built this lab and keeps it up and running. We know that you must realize this sometimes, like when you’re answering to your boss. That’s when you WANT us in the lab; that’s when you NEED us in the lab!

We use words like HARD WORK, SWEAT, HOT, COLD, HEAVY, DIRTY, UNDERPAID and #$%! … We use these words as the backbone of a life spent supporting labs; you use them as a punch line! You want the truth about how we put out so much work? How we get by with half the number of people we should have? You don’t want the truth; you couldn’t stand the truth. Deep down you know it can’t be done by armchair management or good old boy politicians.

Don’t try to flatter us by making an occasional token appearance in the lab. We know that you really only want to be in the lab when some VIP is in town. Don’t feel that you need to establish a dialogue with us. We would rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Either way, we don't give a jolly green damn what information or metrics you think you are entitled to; just get out of our way and let us work!

Air Force 'Force Reshaping' Sales Pitch: Part 2

See Part 1 HERE

We now continue deconstructing the AF's 'Force Reshaping' proposal.....

"People Costs" Ain't the Problem


Another good question! What is the answer?



Gee, it almost reads as if the AF contracted with Scott Adams to deliver them a “Mission Statement Generator”. And it doesn’t look like they mean to 'take care of the Airmen' in the traditional sense so far……


Now Question 8 above is a REALLY good one!



Surprise!-- It’s a Money thing. Not surprised? Me neither.

So does the AF thinks it is spending too much on people in their slice of the defense budget? Let’s look at the evidence they present……hmmmmmm. Nope, no useful data here, but it is a hell of a sales graphic as well as a great “dumbed down for management” slide. What’s wrong with this chart?

1. This represents only ‘people dollars’.
2. ‘People dollars’ have absolutely nothing to do with any other costs, in that Congress provides funds for these costs separate and distinct from other costs. Call it ‘earmarked’, but we (former) ‘acquisition officials’ see it as in different pots (or buckets) of money.
3. Congress sets the amount and DIRECTS the expenditure of these funds as ‘people dollars’.
4. If the DoD spends the money for any other purposes without an OK from Congress then somebody goes to jail.

Congress "Supports the Troops"
Is the AF being pressured by Congress to reduce manpower costs?
NO.
Not really....
Even if you could find a quote that says otherwise.

How do we know this? Because on behalf of an appreciative nation and to help combat the impact of inflation on the individual troop and employee, Congress keeps giving military and civilian DoD employees something called ‘Raises’. How big are the raises? Big enough that most of that rise in costs after 1995 could be largely accounted for by raises in base pay alone: 49+% for military personnel and 34+% for civilian employees (see charts below).


And none of what I’ve mentioned so far accounts for increases in Per Deim, Housing Allowances, Locality Pay: all of which have increased as well.

Most years, raises are generally not any bigger than before, it’s just that (for the years shown on this chart) the increases in pay until 1995 were being offset by reducing the number of people. Stop reducing numbers of people and the impact of raises on total personnel costs becomes apparent. If chart 7 above alarms you, then you are also probably sit around wondering why it is our prison population continues to grow as the crime rate drops.

A few other things jump out here. The fusion of civilian and military pay numbers is no accident. The aging Civil Service force is a ‘Senior’ force in more ways than one: The GS force is so top-heavy with the highest paid people reaching retirement age that the exodus isn’t expected to peak until around 2008-2009 (just off this chart ‘coincidentally’).

We need not go into all the other congressionally-directed changes to the compensation schemes in detail, but here’s one other to consider. Congress has also raised “pay caps” in the period of ‘concern’. While some federal employees make X amount of money according to the pay charts, the actual amount paid out is limited to a specified level (X minus Y), so that the most senior (and costly) military and civilians are actually getting more of what they are supposed to get in the first place. It is very complicated (It IS Congress we’re talking here) so if you want to know more about this quirk you can go here and here to begin your exploration of the wonderful world of government compensation.

With the exception of pay raises, much of what I’ve pointed out has to pale in comparison to the impact of a little thing called Ops Tempo. Note how Operation Allied Force (’99) doesn’t even cause a blip on the cost line, and how the slope really increases in 2001. 2001….2001…..something big started happening in 2001. (Oh yeah, now I remember!) What percentage of this perceived increase can be directly attributed to operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere?

There are some quirks to the indirect and overhead personnel cost accounting we could ponder, but you get the point. All things considered, I want to know how the AF is keeping personnel costs so low!

As you can tell from the left hand side of this slide, the presenters are leading up to the real concern that needs attention: the hardware. That someone at the SecAF level seems to think that there is any correlation between people costs and hardware costs anywhere inside the mind of the typical Joe Congressman is disturbing. That someone or someones ALSO thinks that by marketing a plan that sacrifices PEOPLE on the budgetary altar they can somehow gain direct and proportional favor from the "budgetary gods" to fulfill their future hardware needs is LUDICROUS: No bargain made with a previous Congress (or with the Devil) has ever meant a damned thing to the NEXT Congress or Congress after that.

Somebody! Please, PLEASE fire the Effin’ MBAs and Bring Us Some Leaders! --Rumor has it the Marines still have a few.

In the next installment: We get a little ‘Technical’.

Part 3 HERE

Roger Simon Sees the Problem as Bigger than BDS

I’m going to be a little self indulgent here and relish a small validation I feel in thinking along the same wavelength as the fabulous Roger Simon.

Y’ see, I wrote an e-mail on August 18th concerning the roots behind the craziness of Catherine C. Mayo that parallels Mr. Simon’s observations today on the larger picture behind the Valerie Plame affair. When I wrote the e-mail I thought about blogging it as well - and now I’m kicking myself for not doing so earlier.

Here’s what I wrote to some friends on the 18th, about Ms. Mayo and her ilk:

So,
Is BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) a distinct form of mental illness and if so, what would it have been called before there was a Bush? Should BDS really just be considered a colloquial reference for a subset of a larger pandemic: the Aging Hippie Syndrome?

AHS seems to be brought about by too little adult guidance and/or instruction in western classical thought in the formative years coupled with cornucopian drug abuse and possibly overexposure to black lights. There is evidence that those individuals with over-inflated senses of self and entitlement are particularly vulnerable (Hence the apparent overrepresentation of ‘elite’ university alumni in the affected group).

The condition may lay dormant within these poor flower-children for years until their fragile psyches suffer one or more cataclysmic events that threaten their established world view. These types of events include:
1. Loss of political power: When this happens, the AHs must confront the reality that they are not in the mainstream.
2. Sudden Trans-Cultural Conflict: While initial effects of this can be dampened via ‘projecting’ fault as it fits an existing world-view, over time the web of self-deception breaks down and an overwhelming angst can result in episodes of irrational and random ‘lashing out’.
3. Increased Leisure Time: As AHs reach retirement age, and/or become ‘empty-nesters’ they find themselves with more time for reflection and eventually, if not still/again engaging in the recreational use of drugs, they may come to realize two previously unrecognized facts of life. One is the realization that the world moves on with or without their involvement and the other is that they are actually mortal.
At this time in our society, we seem to be hitting a ‘trifecta’ of sorts. Only time will tell if this current calamity will be subsumed by or tragically amplify the effects of other normal age-related dementia...

Now, here are two excerpts from Mr. Simon’s post (emphasis mine):

So next step - why this phenomenon? Why the acceptance of this narrative whose result is so negative to world history and seems in continuous aid of the destruction of the Enlightenment itself? Is it just Bush Derangement Syndrome? Well, I think that's a large part of it. But the term (BDS) is too narrow to encompass the phenomenon. A variety of psychological forces are in the mix, but most notable to me is a sense of deprivation. 9/11 stripped the left of its self-perceived idealism that was the mainstay of its "personality.” Forces (like Bush) that lefties once dismissed as reactionary were taking the lead in the preservation of the West instead of supporting dictators as they once did. Furthermore, in the old days the left could take concilation that the enemy (communism) had at least a theoretical rationale - economic fairness to all. The new enemy was more troublesome…

In the beginning the left went along with Bush, but the minute things began to lag in Iraq, they deserted him in a flash. At first glance the reason was political but on a deeper (and I believe more important) level the reason was psychological. The left was in a rush to reclaim its lost idealism (the "it's about oil" nonsense was but an obvious example of this), to preserve its disintegrating sense of self.

About the only significant differences I see are:
1. I am much more wordy and flippant in writing to my friends and,
2. I have offered a name to that larger-than-BDS “phenomenon” and,
3. I wish I could write about this kind of stuff with half the skill of Roger Simon.

Morally Confused Lash Out At The Secretary of Defense

Defense secretary tells veterans that U.S. faces a ‘new type of fascism’....And the new appeasers take umbrage.

How deep is the irrationality of the Left on the subject of the global terrorist threat? How motivated would they be to lash out at the bearer of any meritorious criticism of their 'position'?

It is very telling, that an article that identifies so directly the similarities between today's so-called war 'dissenters' and the 1930's appeasers whose primary goals is/was inaction against the Fascism of their respective eras, garners a rating of two stars out of a possible five stars with 1828 votes as of 8:04pm Central. There has to be at least one fat-fingered idiot rating the story 1/2 star repeatedly from as many IP addresses as possible to skew the overall rating of the article that low.

Instead, why don't they spend some time answering the SecDef's question:

“Can we truly afford to believe somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?”

I'd love to know their answer.

Update 8:45pm: 2 stars out of 5 for 1969 users.

Final Update 8:45pm Friday 1Aug06: 2 stars out of 5 for 2686 users. "Fat Fingers" must still be checking in from time to time.

Nothing Like the B-2...

At the fabulous Scrappleface humor site, proof positive that the best humor is always rooted in reality:

“There’s nothing like the B-2 when it comes to giving peace a chance.."

Amen Brother! Amen.

The Funny and Serious Sides of Taxpayer-Funded Breast Enlargement

It’s too bad the military doesn’t actually promote cosmetic surgery as a benefit. I’d love to see the recruiting posters.

I didn’t consider this ‘news’ article ‘blog-able’ after seeing it in today’s ‘Best of the Web Today’ feature (see “Top Notch Protection”) of the Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal website. But then I get home tonight and lo and behold!-- What do I find in the MSNBC/MSN’s ‘Today’s Picks’ bin? None other than the same Reuter’s article, but unlike the humorous take James Taranto has on it (that also gives more depth to the article), it is delivered deadpan. Taranto (or one of his contributors today) tied today’s Reuter’s article to another one that ran a couple of years ago where an allegedly ‘naturally endowed’ female porn star and associates got some free publicity by protesting ‘free’ cosmetic surgery for the active-duty military.

I figure now it is only a matter of hours before Leno, Letterman, O’Brien or Insert-Late-Night-Show-Host-Name-Here gives the story a boost and it will be all over the USA and around the message boards after that. If that happens, expect yet another round of stories with outraged civic groups/citizens complaining about ‘taxpayer-funded boob jobs’.

This is a case of something that seems outrageous at first, but is really quite proper, logical, and serious. There was a pretty definitive article written a couple of years ago in the Cosmetic Surgery Times on the whys and wherefores that make the case for the military offering this ‘service’, and has the unfortunate title of “DOD defends military's plastic surgery benefit”. I would encourage everyone interested in the subject to read it.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to follow the link, here are a few key points with supporting extracts. They aren't particularly earth-shattering -- they are more along the lines of things the man on the street would never take the time to think about.

1. ‘Plastic Surgery’ came into being because of military need.

……. plastic surgery as a specialty emerged out of the horrors of World War I. Now, in an ironic twist, the very institution that spawned the specialty and was essentially responsible for creating the demand for more and better techniques finds itself defending its provision for cosmetic surgery benefits.

2. Cosmetic surgery is available, but not freely available. Nor is it ‘promoted’. In 20 years of military service, and spending considerable time in one of the best military hospitals undergoing multiple reconstructive procedures, and coming in contact with many other patients, I still had no idea that cosmetic surgery was even available to the military until today.

It turns out that although it's true that active duty personnel may seek cosmetic surgery — which, along with all other military health benefits, is free — the surgeon must first get approval from the prospective patient's commanding officer, which reportedly is neither easy to obtain nor frequently granted. Furthermore, the surgery isn't free to dependents or to retired military personnel.

….The DOD allows surgeons to do a small number of cosmetic surgeries per year so that they can maintain their skills and be competitive with their peers when their term of service is complete. Dr. Buss estimates that less than 1 percent of surgeries performed annually in military hospitals are solely elective cosmetic procedures, and of those, Lappert points out, the majority are for retirees or dependents.

3. The value to the government is in how it benefits the medical staff. The patient’s benefit is an independent side-effect as far as the government is concerned.

…..explains that the cosmetic surgery "perk" is actually for the surgeons — not the patients — and that prohibiting plastic surgeons from exercising the full range of their skills would make it difficult, if not impossible, to retain these surgeons in the military….
……."We also use our plastic surgeons to take care of people who have breast cancer, dog bites, cleft lip and so many other things. If we want to keep a cadre of well-trained plastic surgeons wearing uniforms and serving their country, we need to allow them to practice the full scope of care that comes within plastic surgery."
….."This not only teaches skills but is a necessary part of training well-rounded surgeons who are every bit as good as their civilian counterparts in all aspects of their respective surgical specialty," he adds.

4. There is a proven benefit to the quality of medical care by the DoD providing limited access to cosmetic surgery.

Several years ago, the military put a stop to solely elective cosmetic surgery, and negative repercussions followed.
"There was a two-year period from around 1990 to 1992 that followed another (bout) of publicity when cosmetic surgery was prohibited in the military," Dr. Buss says. "The elimination of cosmetic surgery resulted in several problems. It hurt our ability to train residents, and our plastic surgery residency programs were suffering. There were negative ratings for plastic surgery and ear-nose-throat (ENT) residency programs because the trainees were not learning how to do cosmetic surgery, and there were problems with trained surgeons being able to take their board certification exams because they didn't have enough cases. It's difficult to retain these people in the military, if you take away a large part of their practice."

I for one, was very glad that my surgeons were top notch when I needed them, and am thankful they got as much practice as possible before I ever met them. I don't give one whit if they got some of that practice doing cosmetic jobs. I mean, the alternative would require me hoping a lot of other people were hurt and disfigured ahead of me wouldn't it?

Who is Tony Karon?

In the spirit of all the recent exposure that media bias is being given these days I offer the above question.

Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I rarely watch CNN anymore. So I really didn’t know who this "weird" guy was on Paula Zahn’s show ‘Now” that aired on 8 August 2006.

Zahn had a little roundtable on the Hezbollah vs. Israeli combat situation, which I’ve posted part of below. There are numerous instances of "(CROSSTALK)" in the transcript that don’t fully convey the scale of said ‘crosstalk’. And not all ‘crosstalks’ were created equal – some were quite long and a few only momentary. From my perspective, about 90% of the volume of crosstalk came from someone (whom I later learned was Tony Karon) stepping on other people’s attempts to express their views -- especially those of John Fund’s.

I’ve redacted the panel’s background information so the reader can focus on the exchanges. All links are posted at the bottom to avoid spoiling the flow. Those of you who know the answer already should not ruin it for everyone else and more importantly: you need to re-evaluate what you use your memory cells for and why.

Here’s the extract of the transcript downloaded the next day:

We're going to put today's developments to our "Top Story" panel right now: John Fund, Donatella Lorch, and Tony Karon.

Great to have our trio with us tonight.

Donatella, the bottom line here is, the Arab League hates the French-U.S. plan, and the Israelis aren't buying into the Lebanese plan. So, where is there any opening for a compromise here?

DONATELLA LORCH: Well, neither plan seems to be digestible to the other side.

But this is standard. They're going to have the two factions that are going to try and push their agenda as much as possible, including the United States.

So, what has to be done here is, they have to go back. They have to negotiate behind closed doors. And, at the same time, notice that the fighting has intensified along the border. The Israelis are saying they will bring more troops up; they will intensify it. Rockets keep on coming from Hezbollah's side.

Now, if we look at it the way it is, Hezbollah -- Hezbollah doesn't want to be disarmed. And they -- and they want the Israelis out of there, as do the Arab nations. So, there has to be some form of a compromise.

ZAHN: Well, let's talk, John, what about that compromise is going to look like. Even the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, says you can't please all sides here. And he says, the goal is simply to get on the road to a lasting solution.

JOHN FUND: Well, the...

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: Is that going to be all that different from what has been thrown out before?

FUND: Yes. The U.N. led out with the elements of a compromise six years ago, Resolution 1559, which said, central to having peace in the area, rather than a pause in the peace, was disarming Hezbollah.

ZAHN: Well, that didn't work.

FUND: All -- well, but somebody has to enforce it.

I think the plans can work, if they're accompanied with an international embargo on Hezbollah being resupplied with arms that is actually enforceable. If not, I can assure you, we're going to have a pause in the hostilities, not a peace.

ZAHN: What's the reality here, Tony? Is that ever really enforceable? John just mentioned, for six years, nothing has happened.

TONY KARON: I don't think it's enforceable because of the political climate in the region. I don't think you can solve Lebanon in that -- in the way that he is suggesting, without solving particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israeli-Syrian conflict, U.S. tension with -- with -- with Iran.

If -- un -- unless you have a comprehensive solution in that way, you're not going to get the political arrangements to work. That's why Hezbollah has never been disarmed.

FUND: Well, then the terrorists -- the terrorists will have more arms. And terrorists do what terrorists do. They launch attacks on innocent civilians, which is how this all started, remember?

KARON: Well, I think that...

LORCH: Well, this is not a two-faction war. This is not Lebanon against Israel.

This is, in many ways, a proxy war. We have the Americans involved, that want to get rid of Hezbollah. We have the Iranians, the Syrians. The way to get -- stop weapons to come in to Hezbollah is for -- somehow or other, for Israel to talk to Syria, for the United States to talk to Syria, to talk to Iran.

ZAHN: Well, the U.S. government has told us they are talking to Syria, maybe not with high-level...

KARON: Well, no, I think it's, you know...

ZAHN: ... officials, but certainly through back channels.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: There's no doubt that that is going on at this hour.

KARON: Well...

FUND: The U.N. resolution has been on the table for six years. It's not enforced.

The problem the U.N. has is credibility. Everyone looks at the U.N. and says, you're not going to back up what you say you're going to do. And that's why the international force has to have real teeth this time, not just being a paper tiger.

ZAHN: Tony.

KARON: Well, John, I think that the problem is, yes, the U.N. Resolution 1559. But there's also U.N. Resolution 242, U.N. Resolution 338, U.N. Resolution...

(CROSSTALK)

FUND: You're making my point.

KARON: No.

FUND: Nothing -- the U.N. never enforces anything.

KARON: Right. But the point is that the United States is only insisting that the U.N. enforce resolutions that -- that concern this conflict.

FUND: Let's start with something...

KARON: No, that's...

(CROSSTALK)

KARON: And it's -- no, but... (CROSSTALK)

FUND: Something that actually has people -- innocent people dying, which is terrorists launching rockets...

KARON: The U.S. has actually started with the 242. And they actually dropped that.

(CROSSTALK)

FUND: ... would be a good place to start.

ZAHN: All right.

KARON: ... the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(CROSSTALK)

LORCH: The main -- the main thing we have to do right now is try to -- what they have to do right now is try and figure out a way for the shooting to stop and the dead -- the death to stop.

And, to do that, the Arab countries feel that, if the Israelis aren't told that they have to leave, that they will just stay there, and that they will stay there for as long as they like.

So, in addition to this resolution, there has to be a timetable to -- if they agree to the Israeli troops staying, for how long, and when will they leave, and who will replace them, what is the mandate of whoever is going to replace them.

KARON: There's an additional point here, which is that...

ZAHN: Very quickly.

KARON: ... which -- which is that Israel actually doesn't control southern Lebanon at the moment. In order to get to that point, it's going to have to massively expand its operations.

I tuned in right after the introductions but right as the first question was thrown to the panel. As the segment progressed I became increasingly irritated with the behavior of the person I would later learn was Mr. Karon. He wasn’t too bad until John Fund bluntly pointed out how UN resolutions tend not to be enforced.

My first question was “who is this little pissant with the bad Irish accent?” (Mr. Karon comes to us from South Africa, but in his agitated state his tenor sounded kind of like a brogue anyway) My first guess was he was probably a spokesperson for some foreign Non-State Actor organization like Anarchists Against Israel or something. My second question was “why is he so hot-to-squawk on UN Resolution 242”? (I could be mistaken, but I believe there was at least one reference to 242 made by Mr. Karon not listed in the transcript that was buried in the so-called ‘crosstalk’.)

I’m not an ‘expert’ on the subject of UN resolutions of course, but I’m pretty familiar with 242, as it was the basic UN product at the end of the 1967 “6-Day War”, a conflict of particular interest to me. Some would say the resolution ‘brought about the end’ (but I wouldn’t go that far) of the fighting. It didn’t make sense to me that Mr. Karon would wave 242 so boldly in this discussion because it really wasn’t relevant in this situation (Hezbollah kidnaps soldiers and rockets Israel then Israel takes exception and proceeds to kick a**).

Then it occurred to me that perhaps Mr. Karon thought Resolution 242 was about something else, or perhaps he didn’t really understand it. It turns out it is the latter, as a quick search online revealed Mr. Karon has a long history of either ignorance or willful misrepresentation of what Resolution 242 actually contains. From the website of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), we find posted waaay back in February of 2005:

Tony Karon…………misrepresented the terms of U.N. Resolution 242 in his Jan. 10 column entitled “After the Palestinian Elections.” He wrote that the resolution “requires Israeli withdrawal from the territories it seized in 1967,” implying that Israel must withdraw from all those territories (emphasis added). CAMERA contacted Karon to point out that the resolution was carefully worded to call for the withdrawal “from territories,” not “the territories.” This language, leaving out “the,” was intentional, because it was not envisioned that Israel would withdraw from all the territories, thereby returning to the vulnerable pre-war boundaries. And any withdrawal would be such as to create “secure and recognized boundaries.” The resolution’s actual wording calls for “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

Gee, with a title like the "TIME" Magazine Senior Editor For World Coverage, you’d think he’d be a little bit better informed on such topics. But as a Neocon-hunting ‘former’ activist who views the Vice President of the United States as one of the ‘ingnorant ultranationalists’, I guess that makes him just another barking moonbat with press credentials.

Having read some of his ‘professional’ stuff and his blog, I would say Mr. Karon seems very much in the vein of an ‘almost’ geopolitics author, much like Professor Mary Ann Glendon is on the subject of immigration. That is ‘almost’, in the sense that he almost gets a lot of things but doesn’t really get ‘all’ of anything. He also seems to be an ‘if only’ thinker as well – what he writes would be insightful ‘if only’ the world really did work the way Mr. Karon seems to think it should.

Reading his stuff actually makes me a little sad. It is the same sadness I feel when I’m around monkeys: You almost made it to the top rung little dude… you almost made it.

Sources:
1. Paula Zahn’s “Now’ 8 August 06 Panel Discussion: Downloaded 9 August 06 @ 0734 CST

2. CAMERA release extract

Fidel Pinin' for the Fjords?

Soon. May it be very soon, and may Cuba find its way forward a peaceful one.
I still hold hope for a Fidel-Che Tour in Hell this year.

On Taking a Hiatus: Vacation Always Begets Extra Work

No apologies for not posting: A week away to meet my brand new beautiful granddaughter and visit with her parents in Idaho, has backed up work at the home station out the wazoo, and management has left me in charge while they're away (Bwahahahahahaha!) so it will probably be a couple of weeks before I have time for a substantial post.

It was all worth it though. Here's a few pics as proof. As you can see, the grandbaby is gorgeous, our dogs are still buddies, and a morning on the river was just icing on the cake.

Air Force 'Force Reshaping' Sales Pitch: Part 1

"Sir, you lie to Girls, You don't lie to your troops"
(Apologies to the late Rodney Dangerfield)

This rant is going to start out slow because I don’t want to just cherry pick the offensive material and present it without the ‘total pitch’ AF management wants to sell. Most of the front end of this brief is rather vague ‘Mom and Apple Pie’-like and it closes with a ‘Gipper’ moment, but the middle is absolutely target rich: smoke, mirrors, misdirection, and the legendary chartsmanship for which our Air Force has always been the envy of the rest of the Department of Defense.

Here’s the first two slides after the cover slide (slides 2 & 3). There are quite a few slides in all, including cover, “question” and end slides, so most of the brief will NOT be tackled one-slide-at-a-time.
Slide #2:
Good Question!
And now Slide #3:


Bullet #1 is a good start! – They put the immediate pressing threat right at the top.

Bullet #2 is also a good follow up, because Airmen ARE the Air Force. This is apparently a last vestige of the “Take care of the People and the People Will Take Care of the Mission” legacy from the AF’s first 50 years.

But what is with Bullet #3? This is a goal, not a priority (and perhaps the first hint of the real overarching concern of the AF). A priority would have been the “ready to Fly and Fight” statement at the bottom of the page. What is in bullet #3 is simply activities that the AF believes must occur to be ready to “Fly and Fight” in the future. [A Cautionary Side Note: To those who would argue that bullets 2 & 3 are materially similar because they both deal with 'resources', is to self-identify oneself as a manager and not a leader. If you don't get the difference, you're NOT a leader -- no matter how many stars or stripes you might wear.]

Before the end of this briefing it will become apparent that this slide is (quite properly for a lead-in slide) ambitious: attempting three things at once. First, it attempts to eliminate the Global War On Terrorism as a point of possible contention and frame any debate on the AF’s plans and actions as being about future Air Force capabilities and of no concern to the here and now. Second, it attempts to both assuage the anxiety of the target audience over what changes may come and establish that those changes MUST happen as a point of fact – which is again an attempt to narrow the points of possible contention that would frame any possible debate. Having removed ongoing mission requirements and people issues from the debate, the brief sets the hook: the AF needs new hardware!......and begs the question as to where the money will come from. The stage is set. At a Commander’s Call, in oral form, this slide would be expressed as:

OK people, listen up. We’re going to fight this War on Terrorism and win, OK? That’s a given. And we’re going to do as much as we can to take care of everyone that will be affected by some changes we need to make to ensure our future. But what our plan is really about is making sure we have the tools and resources so we can accomplish our mission in the future.

A very wise LTC once told me long ago: "Always remember Sergeant, everything before the “but” is bullshit."
Part 2 Here
Part 3 Here.

Go to Blackfive. Now.

Black Five's in a "dialogue" with some guy named 'Geoff' (IF that is his real name) from the leftish nether regions of the Blogosphere.

Ol' Geoff can't possibly be as far out of the well-travelled byways as I am, but if you stumbled in here go read Uncle Jimbo's post. Now. I hope he got the video working better, but it is still worthwhile though it is out of synch.
Check Six!

War is Ugly, But There’s Uglier

Blogs of War brings us a link to a pretty darned good (heck!- it is great) and very timely piece from Jules Crittenden on possible outcomes from where we stand at this point in history. Included is a slight variation on an old truism:

“War is ugly, but it is not the worst of options”

I agree.

Maybe the Iranian mullahs and sectarian Baathists will reconsider the course they’re steering, or maybe they’ll keep trying to turn ‘now’ into that ‘later’ I talked about (a while back) where we must adjust our view of the Islamism vs. Arabism debate.