Category Archives: War Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Satire, War Commentary

They Didn’t Get The Memo

Iowahawk, as usual, has the scoop on the real cause of the attacks in Mumbai:

…Qasim said that Al Qaeda would work to make amends with victims of the Mumbai tragedy, including sending flowers and handwritten apology notes containing 1000 rupee ($12.65) PakMart gift cards to the surviving families of all 173 dead. Wounded victims are slated to receive a 50 rupee coupon good at participating Waziristan Fried Chicken restaurants.

“Ultimately, I know the ‘buck stops here,’ but I just want to remind everybody in the infidel world that the only gripe that we’ve really ever had with you is about George Bush,” said Qasim. “There’s just something instantly irritating about that guy, you know what I mean? It’s that smirk, the way he says ‘nuke-u-ler’ and all that ‘evildoers’ crap. There’s only so much you can take of him before you start flying planes into skyscrapers or bombing subways, or shooting Hindus, or beheading Thai school teachers, and what-have-you.”

“Believe me, now that Bush is out of the picture we’re just as upset about those senseless killings as everybody else, especially those of us who actually did the senseless killing,” he added. “All we ask is that the Indian judges not take it too hard on Ajmal. The poor kid feels bad enough already. It’s not his fault he didn’t find out about the infidel elections, you know how hard it is to get a decent Verizon cell in Mumbai. Now that we’re all on the same page again it would be a great time for all of us, believers and infidels alike, to put all the nonsense of the Bush years behind us and rekindle that beautiful peace and friendship thing we all had going on back in 2000.”

It’s too bad that Saddam didn’t survive the Bush regime. They might still be flying kites in Baghdad.

Political Commentary, Space and Campaign 2008, War Commentary

Change I Can Believe In

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It’s looking like Gates is going to stay at the Pentagon. I think that’s good news from a space perspective, because I’ve heard that he’s been trying to light a fire under the Operationally Responsive Space folks. It would be a shame to replace him with an unknown in that regard. There should (at least in theory) be a lot of synergy between military and civil space transport needs, in both orbital and suborbital. I hope that the new administration will be able to do better coordination on that than the Bush administration did.

History, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Slow Posting

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I got up early today and had an eye exam (still have two functional ones). They were dilated in the process, so it will be a while before I spend much time on the computer. Meanwhile, here’s an interesting discussion on arming ships against pirates in modern times. We seem to have managed to deal with this a lot better in the past. I think that we should bring back letters of marque, for not just pirates, but lawless terrorists in general.

[Early afternoon update]

A related question: why don’t we hang pirates any more?

…the number of attacks keeps rising.

Why? The view of senior U.S. military officials seems to be, in effect, that there is no controlling legal authority. Title 18, Chapter 81 of the United States Code establishes a sentence of life in prison for foreigners captured in the act of piracy. But, crucially, the law is only enforceable against pirates who attack U.S.-flagged vessels, of which today there are few.

What about international law? Article 110 of the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Convention — ratified by most nations, but not by the U.S. — enjoins naval ships from simply firing on suspected pirates. Instead, they are required first to send over a boarding party to inquire of the pirates whether they are, in fact, pirates. A recent U.N. Security Council resolution allows foreign navies to pursue pirates into Somali waters — provided Somalia’s tottering government agrees — but the resolution expires next week. As for the idea of laying waste, Stephen Decatur-like, to the pirate’s prospering capital port city of Eyl, this too would require U.N. authorization. Yesterday, a shippers’ organization asked NATO to blockade the Somali coast. NATO promptly declined.

As I noted, there seems to be a problem with the modern approach.

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Ominous

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As Clark notes, this isn’t directly related to space transportation regulation, but you can see it coming:

The proposed regulation, titled the Large Aircraft Security Program, would require owners of those aircraft to obtain permission from TSA to operate their own personal aircraft every time they carry passengers. Additionally, all flight crews would be required to undergo fingerprinting and a background check, all passengers would have to be vetted against the government’s terrorist watch lists, and numerous security requirements would be imposed on airports serving these “large” aircraft. EAA adamantly opposes this regulation and urges all members to respond to TSA…

“…We thank the TSA for agreeing with the many industry group and EAA members’ requests for an extension, providing an additional two months to study and react to the proposal,” said Doug Macnair, EAA vice president of government relations. “This proposal would be an unprecedented restriction on the freedom of movement for private U.S. citizens. It would also, for the first time, require governmental review and authority before a person could operate his/her own personal transportation conveyance.

First they came after the private aircraft pilots, and I said nothing, because I wasn’t a private aircraft pilot.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

“The War Is Over, And We Won”

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That’s the word from Michael Yon, reporting from Baghdad.

No thanks to the Democrats, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who tried to keep it from happening. I see that they still can’t bring themselves to utter the word “win” with respect to the war. They continue to talk about “ending” it. Well, it looks like George Bush did that for them, and he won it as well. But winning wars is bad, you see, because it just encourages the warmongers.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Be Very Afraid

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Vice-President-Elect Hairplugs wants to be a hands-on VP:

Biden has said he’d like to use his 36 years of experience in the Senate, including leadership of the Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees, to help push Obama’s agenda in Congress. It’s longtime insider’s experience that Obama lacks and a role that has not been Cheney’s focus.

I’m having trouble thinking of a single foreign policy issue in his career on which Joe Biden has been right.

It’s also kind of frightening to think of him as responsible for space policy, as veeps have traditionally been. Particularly milspace.

War Commentary

Britannia Rules The Waves

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…at least off the Horn of Africa:

Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.

In the ensuing gunfight, two Somali pirates in a Yemeni-registered fishing dhow were killed, and a third pirate, believed to be a Yemeni, suffered injuries and subsequently died. It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the high seas in living memory.

By the time the Royal Marines boarded the pirates’ vessel, the enemy had lost the will to fight and surrendered quietly. The Royal Navy described the boarding as “compliant”.

I’ll bet it was. Don’t bring an “assault rifle” to a machine-gun-and-SA80 fight with Her Majesty’s Navy.

As the article notes, I suspect that they decided after the incident with Iran that they weren’t going to lose another sea battle to a second-rate power, let alone to a bunch of disorganized buccaneers.

History, Political Commentary, War Commentary

An Extinct Species?

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Would that it had been so. In honor of Veterans’ Day, here’s an interesting story of a recording captured to preserve the memory of the war that was to end all wars. Unfortunately, that part didn’t work out.

[Update mid morning]

On the ninetieth anniversary of the Armistice, three British veterans are still alive. The oldest is 112, the oldest man in the country. Did he ever imagine, in the midst of the war, that he would survive another nine tenths of a century beyond its end?