War Commentary

The News Just Keeps Getting Better

…on that defecting Iranian general:

According to the report, the missing Iranian general was carrying documents and maps of Iran’s military and intelligence infrastructure as well as information regarding the relations between the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hizbullah and the Islamic Jihad.

In addition, the general was reported to possess information regarding the Iranian nuclear program as well as information about Iran’s strategic military plans.

Emphasis mine. If true, it will make it a lot easier to take out the key facilities at minimal cost and collateral damage.

This appears to be a major break in our struggle with Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. It would be nice if it also presaged a more general rebellion within the ranks, and the populace itself.

[Mid-morning update]

It’s a quagmire! More insurgent attacks. In Iran.

Space

Saw The Launch

But not from as close as we wanted. We got a late start, so we pulled on to the beach in Melbourne just about the time the window opened. As it turned out, because of the half-hour delay, we had time to drive up further to Cocoa Beach, but there was no way to know that at the time. It was a little hazy on the ground, so we initially just saw a dull glow at ignition, that slowly brightened into a fireball that slowly rose into the sky and headed off to the east. Too far away (or perhaps the wind was blowing the wrong way) for any acoustic effects. Looked like a very smooth ascent, though. Here’s to the success of Orbital Express, which could give us some badly needed key technology demonstrations for orbital fueling.

Space

Looking Good For Launch

There are no technical issues, and the weather is estimated to be 90% probability of acceptable at launch time.

There is this, though, which I think is something that we will need to deal with to make spaceflight routine:

The Air Force will be clearing a Launch Hazard Area off the coast of Cape Canaveral, and mariners are being asked to keep out of the danger zone between 7:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. Friday.

Violators can be fined up to $250,000 and jailed for up to six years. A map of the danger zone is: launchhazardarea.doc.

OK. We’ve warned them. The probability of anyone in the box being harmed by the launch is infinitesimally small (it’s the joint probability of a launch mishap and such mishap actually affecting a boater).

Is this really a justification to hold up a launch that costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and the delay of which could cost many thousands or millions of dollars, or in the case of a military launch, not having a military asset on station during war?

This is a stupid policy. It should be changed. Chase people out of the box, and fine (and even imprison) them if they are there, but don’t hold up the launch over it. Please?

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, on reconsideration, I now realize the reason for the policy. It’s not to protect the boaters. It’s to protect the launchers from a boat-fired missile.

But still, we manage to do thousands of airline flights per day. Why can’t we do it for space launch? It seems to me like a great application for an anti-missile system, installed at the launch site.

War Commentary

“Like Living In A History Piece”

When you sit in front of monitors and maps showing countless trajectories from Lebanon into Israel — into the very places your friends and family live — it can be quite agitating. Some of us were becoming very impatient, and in the many dead moments there were debates whether our response should be harsher. Of course, none of us were in any position of real influence. It was somewhat of a relief when the ground offensive was escalated, even though virtually everyone had people who were very close to them in combat units. I had some very tense conversations with people who were about to enter Lebanon, trying to prepare them without letting out really sensitive information. Talking to friends and family back home sometimes proved difficult because they would ask questions I could not answer — either because I did not know the answer or because it was sensitive. Even today there are some very basic facts about the conflict that I would like the entire world to know, but divulging them would mean that we’ll have poorer intelligence in the next round.

An excerpt from a long but fascinating (at least to me) interview with an IDF officer, by Michael Totten.

[Update a few minutes later]

Meanwhile, Europe has a serious Israel problem. I think this is right:

Perhaps the best explanation, then, is one given by Stephan Vopel of the German Bertelsmann Foundation for why many more Americans and Israelis favor a military strike against Iran than Germans: “While Israelis subscribe to the maxim ‘never again,’ the German dictum is ‘never again war.'” Pacifism, in other words, is the driving force behind European animus toward both the US and Israel.

Yes, it’s easy to be a pacifist, when you’ve had someone else subsidizing your defense for decades.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!