Category Archives: War Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Oopsie

28 Comments

Panetta: “We may have lost track of some Syrian chemical weapons.”

Here’s what I don’t get. I’ve seen all these stories over the past few months about “Syria’s chemical weapons,” in which they are discussed as though it’s the most natural thing in the world that Syria would have chemical weapons. No one ever seems to ask how they acquired them. Frank Salvato was asking the same question in July.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

A New Bumper Sticker For Joe Biden

1 Comment

Chris Stevens is dead, Al Qaeda is alive.

[Update a few minutes later]

Surprise! The Nobel Peace Prize winner has not earned his award.

[Update a while later]

Dispatches from the war that nobody wants:

As everybody knows, there is no such thing as a global war on terror anymore. Instead we live in a harmonious world of interfaith comity with only the occasional criminal act that is quickly and competently handled by law enforcement officials. As a result we can cut our defense budgets and get on with the real business of life, which is to say watching TV, going to the mall and voting to re-elect the strategic geniuses whose wise decisions and firm but thoughtful leadership gave us this tranquil world order.

As we celebrate this new age of peace, understanding and joy, here are a few stories that might matter if we didn’t have such a wise and level-headed government in Washington that was bent on soothing and quieting what might otherwise be an aroused and worried public opinion.

Unfortunately, it’s not true that nobody wants it. The enemy does. They know that you can’t win if you don’t fight.

History, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

China’s Aircraft Carrier

22 Comments

They’re about to find out just how hard it is to run one. It has this amazing statistic that I’d never seen before:

Between 1949, when the U.S. Navy began deploying jets on a large scale, and 1988, when the combined Navy/Marine Corps aircraft accident rate achieved U.S. Air Force levels, the Navy and Marine Corps lost almost 12,000 aircraft and more than 8,500 aircrew.

Emphasis mine. That’s accidents, not combat. And what they mean by getting the rate to Air Force levels, is reducing it to that rate. In other words, those are the casualties of learning how to fly combat-proficient aircraft from carriers, and it didn’t really occur until the introduction of the F/A-18 Hornet.

Here’s a related link: the U.S. Navy’s transition to jets.

And yet we obsess about safety in spaceflight.

[Via email from Jim Bennett]

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Jailed For Blasphemy

48 Comments

Free speech in Obama’s America.

[Update a while later]

More thoughts from Allahpundit:

According to TMZ, the guy’s probation report is sealed. Question for criminal defense attorneys: Is there any way to force it to be unsealed, or is that at the discretion of one or both of the parties? There’s a public interest at this point, I think, in knowing why they’re sending him back to prison. Did he commit a serious crime that we don’t know about, or are they using a technicality to punish him for blasphemy?

I think we can make a good guess.