People Need To Settle Down

I wasn't surprised this weekend when a meme spread through the "progressive" side of the 'net that resurrected the "we're about to attack Iran with the Eisenhower and Enterprise Strike Groups" pre-election scare. This seemed to get a new jump-start from an article by former Gary Hart military advisor William Lind saying that:

Sources indicate increasing indications of 'something big' happening between the Nov. 7 congressional election and Christmas. That could be the long-planned attack on Iran.

This was coupled with an article by someone named Dr. Elias Alkeh that said:

The US and NATO countries had amassed the largest military armada in the Middle East. The US armada consists of Carrier Strike Group 12 led by nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, Eisenhower Strike Group – another nuclear powered aircraft carrier with accompanied military vessels and submarines, Expeditionary Strike Group 5 with multiple attack vessels led by aircraft carrier USS Boxer, the Iowa Jima Expeditionary Strike Group, and the US Coast Guard. Canada has sent its anti-submarine HMCS Ottawa frigate to join the American Armada in the Persian Gulf. On October 1st the USS Enterprise Striking Group had crossed the Suez Canal to Join NATO armada at the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Emphasis mine. As usual, the moonbats had no clue about how normal military deployments actually work, and decided that a routine Strike and Expeditionary Strike Group relief indicated that we were about to attack Iran. Interestingly, the wailing and gnashing of teeth continued throughout the 'net throughout the weekend, despite the fact that the Enterprise pulled back into her homeport of Norfolk on Saturday.

I'm not surprised that the tin-foil hat crowd continued to bray about the issue without regard to the facts, but I'm kind of surprised that the very respected Hugh Hewitt asked about the "four carriers in the Gulf" reports, and as of this posting, none of his commenters had mentioned that the Enterprise had come home.

For those who were still wondering -- no, we're not about to attack Iran. If we were, there would be warning signs that people experienced with the military would recognize. I'm not seeing any of them.

Somewhat off topic, the aforementioned William Lind used to be fairly influential before his tinfoil hat cut off circulation to his brain; I remember him addressing the NROTC unit at the University of Kansas when I was there back in the mid-80s. Back then, he talked about how we needed to switch from nuclear subs to diesel ones. He's still pushing that point (using the recent Kitty Hawk v. Chinese Song-class sub encounter as a goad) in an article he put out today. In it, he says:

Another lesson is that diesel-electric subs can be as effective or more effective than nuclear boats in same situations. The U.S. Navy hates the very idea of non-nuclear submarines and therefore pretends they don't count for much. You can buy four to eight modern diesel-electric submarines for the cost of a single American "U-cruiser" nuke boat.
At this point, the Chinese sub's successful interception of our carrier does raise an interesting question: how was that sub in the right position to make an interception? What a nuclear submarine can do but a diesel-electric sub cannot is undertake along, high-speed chase. Was it just dumb luck the Chinese sub was were we were in effect ran into it? Or were the Chinese able to coordinate the sub's movement over time with successful tracking of our carrier battle group? If the latter is the case, the Chinese Navy may be starting to become a real navy instead of just a collection of ships. That transformation is far more important than whether China has this or that piece of equipment. It won't happen fast, but it bears watching.
Or does it? The somewhat regrettable message from the world of real war, Fourth Generation war, is that deep-water battles or prospective battles between navies means little if anything. Speculating about the balance between U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and Chinese submarines is like wondering what would happen at Trafalgar if the French Admiral Villeneuve's van had responded immediately to his signal to wear and support the center of the Allies' line, or Admiral Gravina had led his Squadron of Observation straight for the British Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood's column. It's fun to think about -- personally, I enjoyed it immensely -- but c'est ne pas la guerre: It isn't war. Control of coastal and inland waters may play highly important roles in Fourth Generation war, but deep water naval battles like the Glorious First of June, if they occur, will be jousting contests, with broomsticks. In real war, the U.S. Coast Guard may be more useful than the U.S. Navy.
That is the real lesson of the Chinese sub incident: the U.S. Navy, like the U.S. Air Force, without a torpedo fired or a single dogfight, is on its way to Davy Jones's Locker through sheer intellectual inanition. Preparing endlessly for another carrier war in the Pacific against the Imperial Japanese navy, it has become a historical artifact.

Normally, I'd feel the need to argue against his thesis, but based on his demonstrated idiocy discussed above, I don't feel it's necessary. If you have the desire to either agree or disagree with him, though, feel free to start a discussion in the comments.

Update 2305 21 Nov: For those who like to get ahead of the game, here's the next thing the moonbats will be holding up as "proof" we're about to attack Iran:
Stennis, Reagan Strike Groups Join Forces, Make Carrier Task Force

Here's what they'll say: Two carriers never work together! The John C. Stennis is about to deploy, even though they just finished an overhaul last year! Bush is a warmonger! It's all Israel's fault! (Actually, they say that last one about any news item.)

No, We Are NOT About To Attack Iran

Various conspiracy theorists have been arguing that the normally scheduled deployments of the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) mean we're about to attack Iran. I suppose that's possible, even though we normally have at least 3 aircraft carriers deployed -- one in the Gulf (as USS Ronald Reagan is now), one on it's way to relieve them (or coming home from being relieved), and another on a non-Gulf deployment. Plus, I thought USS George Washington (CVN 73) was supposed to be getting ready to invade Venezuela, and I don't think we want to spread our carriers that thin.

Now comes word that two submarines, one from each coast, left on "surge deployments" last week. USS Louisville left from Pearl on May 2nd, and USS Memphis (SSN 691) left from Groton last Saturday. These "surge deployments" are something subs haven't done much lately, but they don't mean we're about to go to war again. Normally, they're run as demonstations that we can do it, and only last three months. The last time I remember the Navy doing a bunch of "surge deployments" was back in 2004, and we all remember how we attacked North Korea and Iran back then.

Bottom line: This is not an indication that we're about to attack Iran. Late-night pizza deliveries to the Pentagon, however...

SSBNs To Attack Iran?

OK, that's kind of an alarmist headline... something you might expect from a blogger, who has no editors to check them, and no pretense of impartiality. The mainstream media would clearly do better...

So let's check out this article in The London Telegraph, which has been picked up by many other news organizations, about Pentagon contingency planning for possible attacks on Iran. Here's the first paragraph:

"Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb."

Whoa... "submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks"! Sounds like we're serious. The article goes on to discuss how "urgent" the new planning is. Many people will think this means that we're planning a pre-emptive nuclear attack on a non-nuclear rival; however, the article does explain that the planned SLBM attack would involve the forthcoming generation of conventionally-armed SLBM warheads (that I discussed last month) thusly:

"The Bush administration has recently announced plans to add conventional ballistic missiles to the armoury of its nuclear Trident submarines within the next two years. If ready in time, they would also form part of the plan of attack."

Plans to add these new missiles to the "armoury" within the next two years... sounds alarming. See, that's the important part -- the article has to make it appear that we'll attack Iran during the remaining years of the Bush presidency; after all, he's the source of all evil in the world. (Interestingly, I've noticed that the Telegraph is probably the most conservative of the mainstream Brit papers -- I'd normally expect stuff like this from The Guardian or LA Times.)

The only problem with this is that the proposal to develop these warheads is being included in the new budget that's was just submitted, and the contractor says that if they get the money this year, they'll be able to start producing the new weapons by 2010. So maybe, just maybe, this contingency planning we're doing is more of the "long range" variety? Naw, that doesn't sell newspapers.

On the other hand, it might be good to occasionally remind the angry Islamists in Tehran that, because of the non-conventionally armed portion of our boomer fleet, that they really can't ever win a war against the U.S.

Now It's Just Getting Ridiculous

Coming quickly on the heels of Time magazine's non-story of the impending minesweeper deployment, The Nation has uncovered another shocking piece to the puzzle of our "impending" attack on Iran -- The Eisenhower Strike Group is about to deploy! Here's an excerpt of what they say:

As reports circulate of a sharp debate within the White House over possible US military action against Iran and its nuclear enrichment facilities, The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have issued orders for a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1...
...According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received recent orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21.
The Eisenhower had been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for several years for refurbishing and refueling of its nuclear reactor; it had not been scheduled to depart for a new duty station until at least a month later, and possibly not till next spring. Family members, before the orders, had moved into the area and had until then expected to be with their sailor-spouses and parents in Virginia for some time yet. First word of the early dispatch of the "Ike Strike" group to the Persian Gulf region came from several angry officers on the ships involved, who contacted antiwar critics like retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner and complained that they were being sent to attack Iran without any order from the Congress...
...One solid indication that the dispatch of the Eisenhower is part of a force buildup would be if the carrier Enterprise--currently in the Arabian Sea, where it has been launching bombing runs against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and which is at the end of its normal six-month sea tour--is kept on station instead of sent back to the United States. Arguing against simple rotation of tours is the fact that the Eisenhower's refurbishing and its dispatch were rushed forward by at least a month. A report from the Enterprise on the Navy's official website referred to its ongoing role in the Afghanistan fighting, and gave no indication of plans to head back to port. The Navy itself has no comment on the ship's future orders.

Emphasis mine. All this is fascinating if true, but here's the kicker -- the Eisenhower ESG completed their JTFEX at the end of July, so an October deployment would be right on time (or maybe even a little later than normal) for a regular deployment cycle. They most assuredly wouldn't do a JTFEX in the summer if they weren't supposed to deploy until "next spring". The writer from The Nation is just making stuff up. This whole meme that's spreading through the lefty media reminds me of the great "Summer Pulse" scare of 2004 when people were tracking carrier deployments as proof of an impended U.S. attack on Iran just before the 2004 elections.

These people seriously need to get another angle to play -- this one's getting old.

USS Georgia Visits Bahrain

USS Georgia (SSGN 729) became the first Ohio-class submarine to operate in the Arabian Gulf during her current deployment. Here's a story from Fifth Fleet about their port call in Bahrain, and here's a blog entry by CAPT Brian McIlvaine (my old XO) describing the port visit.

Back during the Bush Administration, stories like this would have brought the "we're about to attack Iran" crowd to screaming levels of hysterics. I wonder if any of them are now willing to admit, given that we never did attack Iran before President Bush left office, that they were wrong in thinking that President Bush was purely evil, and are maybe even willing to entertain the idea that he was actually a man who had the best interests of the country at heart, even if they disagree with him on how to achieve what was best for the country?

Outraged Canadians Are Funny

The story out today that a U.S. promotional video, produced by Disney and designed to be used to convince people to visit America, includes a shot of the Canadian part of Niagara Falls is sure to elicit lots of complaints from our neighbors north of the border. Whether it's protests at submarine trips through the Northwest Passage or wondering why people don't like their traditional baby seal hunts, Canadians are quick to take offense at what they feel are any American slights. These protests frequently take the form of "We're not Americans, OK, buddy! This is aboot our national sovereignty! Americans don't even know we're a different country!"

Here's the deal -- essentially all Americans do recognize that our Canadian allies are from a different country. It's only because they spin up so easily -- and so amusingly -- that you hear Americans tell a Canadian, "But, I thought Canada was part of Maine (or Minnesota, or Montana, depending on where they are)," or ask them if they have a moose in their outhouse.

I know you're probably saying to yourself, "Sure, Bubblehead, we all agree that outraged Canadians are funny, but aren't tin-foil hatters even funnier?" The answer is, of course, yes. Check out how this conspiracy theorist (scroll down a bit) ties together two Navy stories from this month into a conspiracy theory to make any 9/11 Truther salivate:

Kremlin reports are stating today that the United States War Leaders are in a ‘state of panic’ over the unraveling of their abortive attempt to attack Iran with a nuclear missile launched from the Middle Eastern Nation of Qatar during the visit of President Putin.
The Americans plan, according to these reports, was for the Russian President to be killed during the nuclear missile strike on Iran, throwing the Kremlin ‘off guard’ and unable to respond to the combined US-Israeli assault upon the Iranian Nation...
... Russian Military Intelligence reports are stating that after the aborted US nuclear missile launch against Iran, the 3-person crew of the Patriot Missile Battery in Qatar were ‘moved’ to the giant US Naval Support Activity base in Bahrain, and which after their ‘interrogation’ 2 of the US Soldiers, Genesia Mattril Gresham and Anamarie Sannicolas Camacho, were immediately killed and the third US Soldier involved, Clarence Jackson, was shot through the brain and was not expected to survive.
[US Military reports, however, on the deaths of the Patriot Missile Crew, state that Clarence Jackson shot his fellow soldiers before turning his weapon on himself.]
These reports go on to state that after US Military investigators determined that the nuclear material used in the aborted strike against Iran came from one of their own Los Angeles Class Nuclear Submarines it was ordered back to its port in San Diego whereupon its commander was placed under arrest with several members of his crew also being charged.
US reports on this incident, and as we can read as reported by the CNN News Service, state: "The commander of the nuclear-powered submarine USS Hampton has been relieved of his command amid an inquiry into misconduct by crew members...

I wish I could make up stuff this good...

Submarine Info On The Internet -- Good And Bad

Dealing with information about submarines in a public forum is always a mixed bag -- there are lots of things we know that we can't talk about, and because people can pretty much say whatever they want on the 'net, it's sometimes hard for people without the necessary background to figure out what's right and what's B.S.

On the "good" side, there's lots of great information out there on submarines that the discriminating reader can find -- some of it in unlikely places. A reader sent in this photo of a U.S. Los Angeles-class submarine (probably USS Minneapolis-St. Paul on her final journey) transiting the Panama Canal earlier this month that they got from the Canal's live webcams:

On the other hand, sometimes information of a more questionable nature makes it onto the web. Consider the recent report that a U.S. submarine had sunk a North Korean freighter carrying nuclear supplies and enriched uranium to Iran two weeks ago. From the article:

In reports first published by DEBKAfile, American naval and air forces intercepted two North Korean vessels clandestinely en route for Iran with cargoes of enriched uranium and nuclear equipment in the past month. The shutdown of Pongyong's nuclear facilities has made these items surplus to North Korea's requirements and the Islamic Republic was more than willing to pay a hefty price for the goods.
On July 12, the second intercepted North Korean freighter was sunk in the Arabian Sea by torpedoes fired from a US submarine 100 miles southeast of the Iranian naval base-port of Chah Bahar. Delivery of its freight of enriched weapons-grade uranium and equipment and engines for manufacturing more fissile material including plutonium in its hold could have jump-forwarded Iran's nuclear bomb and warhead project, lopping off at least a year of work. For this Iran's rulers were ready to reportedly pay out a cool $500 million.
A few hours earlier, President Bush received an intelligence briefing on the vessel, its freight and destination. Apparently the shipment was brought forward by several weeks to evade detection by UN nuclear inspectors scheduled to visit Pyongyang this week to verify the dismantling of its nuclear facilities.
US airplanes had been tracking the freighter and picked up signs of radioactivity, indicating the presence of nuclear materials aboard.
President Bush had the option of ordering US Marines to board the vessel or to sink it. He decided on the latter - both because the North Korean freighter was approaching an area patrolled by Iranian naval units and seizure of the vessel by American marines might have provoked a clash; secondly, it was the better choice in order to avoid exposing US troops to radioactive contamination. American naval and air units in the Persian Gulf, Middle East and seas opposite North Korea were ordered to go on a high state of readiness and the torpedo the North Korean vessel was accomplished without delay.
After the attack, US warships raced to the spot where the ship went down where they picked up three lifeboats. Most of the North Korean sailors aboard were either injured or dead. Twenty in all died in the attack. They all bore symptoms of contamination. After the episode, the area was cordoned off and underwater equipment dropped to salvage the cargo from the sunken ship.
All the parties to the incident, the United States, North Korea and Iran, have kept the incident under wraps as the situation in and around the Gulf is inflammable enough to explode into a full-blown Iranian-US clash at the slightest provocation.

It's fairly obvious why this claim hasn't gotten more play in the regular media -- it just doesn't make sense. Besides that fact that it's fairly unlikely that North Korea has enough weapons-grade uranium to start exporting, the "information" in the article that U.S. aircraft were able to "pick up signs of radioactivity" from uranium -- an alpha emitter -- is enough to set off the B.S. detector for those who know about such things.

Bottom line: Submariners can help raise the level of public discourse by providing facts about whatever submarine-related tidbits of information make it into the public domain -- bound of course by the restriction that we can't use any classified information. The submarine bloggers listed at the right perform such a public service. With regards to the specific claim discussed above, while I could see a submarine being used for such a mission, this particular report doesn't really ring true, so I have to throw the flag at it.

Ever Get Writer's Block?

Other than yesterday being the 141st anniversary of the CSS Hunley sinking USS Housatonic in the first "successful" submarine attack ("successful" in that the target was sunk; not as successful in that Hunley's surface to dive ratio did not remain at 1 by the end of the mission) there's really not that much out there in the news that I haven't already covered. I'm still planning of writing a summary of the direction of future submarine construction, but not yet. Since I still haven't heard back from Lt. Raymond Perry, USN (Ret.), I'll fall back on the time-tested lazy blogger's fallback and run a "best of...". This one's from last month (I really haven't been blogging very long; only five months now...) but new events in Syria and Iran might bring some new light to it:

Deterrence: The condition in which an adversary is certain that any attack will be met with retaliation, but is unsure of the extent of the retaliatory response.
I don’t claim to be an expert at international relations, world history, or current socio-economic trends. What I am is a simple retired submarine officer who has spent the last 20+ years living and traveling around the world, interacting with military officers from dozens of countries, and developing a world-view that I hope will allow me to explain to my children in a logical way why some people might want to kill them just because they’re Americans. Here’s what I believe right now: (Disclaimer: I reserve the right to modify my opinion if and when I get new factual information. I’ve seen many people on the ‘net complain that people “believe their opinions are right”, as if that’s a negative. Opinions are, by definition, what one believes to be true based on the information they have. To those who are against one believe that one’s opinion is right, I would ask them to name an opinion they have that they believe to be wrong. Not too easy, huh?)
We (the United States) have been at war with people who subscribe to what is frequently called an “Islamist” philosophy since at least 1979, when our Embassy in Teheran was over-run by Iranian militants. This war continued on through our involvement in Lebanon in the early ‘80s, through the scattered terrorist attacks of the ‘90s, and reached new heights with the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen and finally with the attacks on September 11th, 2001. This was a rather one-sided war; not from a military point of view, but from the viewpoint that only one side (the Islamists) recognized that we were at war – that is, up until the morning of September 11th. At this point, the American public realized, as had many in the military that I had worked with through the 90s, that we were in a no-shit, world-wide war against a determined enemy.We prosecuted the opening phases of this “new” war brilliantly, overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan and mostly chasing Al Queda (or the “UBL” organization, as we military professionals always referred to it before 9/11) into the ungoverned regions of Pakistan. Our next step in the war is where it got tricky. Our goal should be to deter the terrorist from attacking the U.S. homeland, or that of our allies, ever again. As I said at the beginning of this entry, deterrence is the state where the enemy is certain that we will retaliate, but unsure of how we will retaliate.
This brings us to the Iraqi theater of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). We had any number of reasons to attack Iraq and replace their government: 1) They were shamelessly violating oil sanctions imposed as a result of their failure in their aggressive war against Kuwait; 2) they were shooting at our warplanes enforcing the “no-fly” zones imposed as a result of previous Iraqi violations of the cease-fire ending the Persian Gulf War; 3) they were harboring terrorists who’s stated goal was to attack the U.S. (the fact that these particular terrorists were not involved in the 9/11 attacks notwithstanding). [Note to readers: I personally saw 1) and 2) above, so for the purposes of this blog they will be treated as a "given".] Also, and what I believe was the best reason to eliminate the Baathist regime, is 4): They were "loose cannons" whose future actions we could not predict, and who were likely to cause even more trouble by not being removed. In saying I believe that this was the best reason for a pre-emptive war, I'm not arguing that this is the "ethically right" causus belli (arguments 1, 2, and possibly 3 above fit the bill better), I'm just saying that that is how power politics operate in the new, unipolar world. Might may not make right, but perceived weakness doesn't mean you can kick the bully in the nuts and not expect him to hunt you down. This is the real world, not a college classroom. There are those who say that the oil sanctions and no-fly zones were unfair; that may be so, but I believe that a country (or stateless people, in the case of the Palestinians) should suffer some penalties as the result of starting an aggressive war that they then go on to lose. Two centuries ago, that penalty would have been complete loss of sovereignty over some or all of their territory; international opinion now seems to have moved away from this option.
I believe that the message we were trying to send to the Islamists in positions to attack the U.S. by invading Iraq was, basically, “You attacked us, and you figured that you could accept the loss of your major base of operations. However, we’re also taking away an option for a future base of operations as well, as part of our retaliation. Think about that the next time you want to start something.” [Is this fair? Probably not. Is this type of thinking required to defeat our new enemy? I believe it is.] Although for political reasons we had to go through the UN and try to base the war on “weapons of mass destruction” (which we assumed was a “slam dunk”, mostly based on our failure to understand the Arab psyche, as well as assuming that the Iraqi acknowledgment of a chemical/biological stockpile in the mid-90s was valid), I believe that most international leaders understood the real story.
We now find ourselves occupying a country who doesn’t want us there, and where we honestly don’t want to be for an extended period of time. This wasn’t a “war for oil” – if we wanted cheap oil, we could just occupy Canada. This was, in my opinion, a warning shot across the bow of Islamist strategists: our level of retaliation was more than you expected, and you can expect it to be worse next time. Our goal should be, such that when a terrorist wakes up in the morning and thinks, “Hey, I should attack the United States”, his next though should be “…but if I do, the consequences will likely be worse than I am able to bear. Therefore, I won’t attack the U.S., and live to fight another day.”
That being said, I believe that, unfortunately, we have shown that the U.S. wasn’t psychologically or politically ready to pursue such a strategy, as shown by the negative public reaction to recent setbacks in Iraq. We’ve shown that there is a level of resistance that can make a large part of the electorate start declaring the operation to be another “Vietnam” and a “quagmire”. This is unfortunate; we had a chance to change the world. I believe that we must “stay the course” in Iraq, and finish what we’ve started there, hoping that the small seed of democracy can grow, and choke out the Islamist thistle patch that is flourishing there now. Perhaps we have taught the terror masters that we won’t let an attack go unanswered, as we did when the USS Cole was attacked. I hope so, but I doubt it. We still don’t understand the motivation that drives our most implacable enemies and their supporters (Note: I do not mean we should alter our behavior to change their motivations, just that we need to understand them to be able to counter [and kill] them more effectively). Until our leaders and the public at large fully understands the hate that dwells in their hearts will we find the will to fight them at the level where we need to in order to gain complete victory. We aren’t there yet (I’m not even there – I was repulsed by what I saw from Abu Grahib), and I fear we won’t be until another attack helps force it into our collective psyche. I hope it won’t come to that, that we have met our goal of deterring our adversaries, who know that another attack will likely result in the increase of American will to will enable us to fight them on their terms… and that’s what I tell my children.
Note: I intentionally did not read Bill Whittle’s essay titled “Deterrence” when that came out several months ago, because I’ve been planning on writing this since before I started blogging. If any of the ideas expressed here were expressed earlier (and I’m sure better) by him, this wasn’t a case of plagiarizing; simply a case of a lesser blogger reading some of the same resources and coming to similar conclusions.

Stand And Deliver!

With yesterday's inauguration of President Obama, I've probably lost out on one of my favorite past-times -- going over to Democratic Underground and seeing the worst sufferers of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome, i.e. "Bush is to blame for every bad thing that has happened in the last 8 to 28 years") hold forth. I figured that seeing former President Bush fail to declare martial law, attack Iran, issue pardons to everybody in his administration, put all progressives in Halliburton-built concentration camps, or "cause" another terror attack on U.S. soil, would make them realize that maybe, just maybe, President Bush isn't evil and bent on destroying the U.S., but rather is a man who honestly wanted what was best for the country, even if his ideas didn't work out that well. Not surprisingly, they didn't come to that conclusion -- the consensus seemed to be that he wanted to do all those things, but brave progressives, in "revealing" his nefarious plans, made it so he couldn't do them. It's perfect circular logic!

Now we'll see if their ideological counterparts on the right will come out and show similar reasoning. Here's the chance for all strongly anti-Obama people to make predictions of what horrible things they think President Obama will do. (Let's limit it to the next 2 years, since the American people will get a chance to reduce his majority in Congress in 2010 if they don't like what he's doing.) Will he take away any guns currently owned by anyone who reads this post? Will he mandate taxpayer-funded abortions on the White House lawn? Surrender to Iran? Personally, I think that we won't see anything really, really controversial happen in the next 2 years. We won't see the Freedom of Choice Act pass, or see the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. I think we'll pretty much see a fairly liberal administration led by another man who truly believes he's acting in the best interests of his country, some of whose ideas won't work out too well -- President Barack Obama. May God bless the President of the United States of America, and his country and all the residents thereof.

Good Old-Fashioned Naval "Show Of Force"

According to a Fifth Fleet press release, we now have both CVNs in the Fifth Fleet AOR operating inside the Persian (Arabian) Gulf; this is the first time I remember we've seen two carriers inside the Gulf since 2003. While the press release doesn't say anything about it, this is clearly in response to the Iranian seizure of 15 British servicepeople last week at the northern end of the Gulf. (Exactly why the Brits allowed themselves to be captured is detailed here; apparently, their ROE is "very much de-escalatory". They might want to rethink that in the future.)

It interests me that we're going for a "show of force" option that tends to minimize our ability to actually conduct any attacks on Iran; this is good news for those of us who don't think war with Iran is the right option at this time. While the Kos Kids might think that this is a precursor to an attack on Iran, in actuality the absolute worst initial conditions for a U.S. attack on Iran would be to have both (or any) carriers inside the Persian Gulf - that's the only place where the Iranian forces could conceivably hurt our capital ships. For that reason, while a "show of force" has some public relations uses, I'm not sure it's the right move at this time from a strictly military standpoint-- the Iranians might actually be intending on starting something. (I don't think they are, but it's hard to read the mullah's minds.) Putting the carriers in a better position to defend themselves (i.e. pulling the Eisenhower out of the Gulf) would have sent a stronger message to the Iranian military -- at the cost of appearing "weak" to those who don't understand the military at a tactical level. On the other hand, this might be the Administration's way of being "de-escalatory" themselves.

More On The "Carrier Surge"

I posted earlier this week on the media reports of an incipent "naval build-up" in the Persian Gulf, and dismissed them as a standard MSM failure to understand normal naval deployment patterns. Based on reports that came out today from the New York Times and Navy Times, though, it looks like my initial reaction was wrong -- this might be the real thing. (Please note that by "real thing" I mean that we're probably going to plus-up the Allied naval force in the Fifth Fleet AOR over at least the short term; it most emphatically does not mean that we're about to attack Iran, despite the recent brayings of various moonbats. Leaving aside the political unlikelihood of successfully opening a new front in the War on Terror without Congressional authorization, there hasn't been any indication of other military precursors you'd see if we were about to attack someone new.)

What made me change my mind? Well, here's an excerpt from the Navy Times article:

The Bremerton, Wash.-based Stennis, Carrier Air Wing 9 and the rest of the strike group have completed pre-deployment training and were scheduled to deploy in late January, officials said. A Pentagon source said the deployment could be moved up several weeks.
If the group deploys early, it could be in the gulf within several weeks, allowing it to overlap there for as many as two months with the Norfolk, Va.-based Dwight D. Eisenhower CSG, which deployed Oct. 3 on a seven-month cruise. It entered the gulf Dec. 11, according to the 5th Fleet...
...A 5th Fleet spokesman confirmed that a “request for forces,” or RFF, has been sent to the Pentagon by U.S. Central Command.
“I’m aware that they’ve put out an RFF requesting strategic military assets to be moved to this region,” said Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl. He said additional ground forces had also been requested. He declined to comment on specific units.

People with staff experience will recognize the specific "code words" within the article that indicate that the sources for the story actually have a clue as to what's going on. For this reason, I've concluded that the Navy is trying to get the word out to the Iranians that we're about to move some more naval forces into the region -- probably just to remind them that we can.

I haven't been in the Gulf on an aircraft carrier (or any other ship, for that matter) since 2000, so things may have changed, but here's my quasi-knowledgable take on what's probably going to happen:

Trying to get a Carrier Strike Group underway early around the holidays is problematic at best. After a JTFEX, there are specific things that need to be done as far as maintenance and stores-loading that would be very expensive to make happen quicker. Coupled with having people out on holiday leave across the country (and knowing the morale problems that would be caused by cancelling the 2nd Holiday Leave period for anything short of an expanded war), my guess is that getting the Stennis Strike Group underway before the 2nd week in January would be fairly unlikely. When I was on the Stennis for their 2000 deployment, we left San Diego about January 7th, and did exercises and port visits in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Malaysia before getting to the 5th Fleet AOR at the end of February. If they were serious about getting to the Gulf and cut out any port calls, they could probably make it to the Pakistani coast (the easternmost part of the AOR) in about 4 weeks -- remember, it's a 10,000 nm voyage from Seattle to Karachi, which is 28 days at 15 knots. (I use this voyage calculator to come up with maritime distances, btw.) For those who think the nuclear-powered carrier could arrive sooner, yes, that's true -- but remember her escorts are conventionally-powered, and have to refuel a lot more frequently if they go much faster than that. So, unless they extend the Eisenhower or send a surge carrier to the AOR, the two month overlap they discuss in the article looks fairly realistic. Of course, to maintain that level of naval presence in the Gulf beyond the spring would require a complete reshuffling of the fleet-wide deployment schedule, which we normally do only when there's a hot war.

In summary, if we end up with four carriers in the AOR at the same time and the new Congressional leadership starts making noises about "dealing with" Tehran, then I'll start listening to the "we're about to bomb Iran" crowd -- not before.

Update 0136 22 Dec: Oh, and which submarine is assigned to the JCSSG, and might end up pulling the short straw? It looks like it's the USS Key West (SSN 722). Also of interest to submariners, the destroyer USS O'Kane (DDG 77), named for RADM Dick O'Kane, is also assigned to the Strike Group.

Update 0959 24 Dec: The "progressive" "press" is now claiming that the Stennis has already left. Apparently we're covering this up by use of holographic projections, since a reader in Bremerton confirmed yesterday afternoon that the Stennis was still sitting in port.

Should We Attack Syria?

With an American submarine reported to be among the assets on standby for a possible attack on Syria, and the President announcing that he'll ask Congress for authorization for such an attack, I figure we should discuss how Congress should vote.

Normally, I would be in favor of any excuse to reduce the military capabilities of a Ba'athist dictatorship, but I've got some serious concerns about this one. For one thing, we'd be intervening in a civil war in which the side we'd be aiding in our attacks aren't necessarily people we want to be helping. Also part of the discussion is whether the U.S. even wants to be the "world's policeman" any more, like we were in the '90s. I'm leaning towards "no" on that last question.

There's no doubt that using chemical weapons against civilians is a dick move, and while I wouldn't put it past the al Qaeda-linked portion of the Syrian insurgency to use chemical weapons against civilians in areas under their control in an attempt to get a Western military response against the regime, I think there's a pretty good chance the Syrian government launched this most recent attack. So, while it's definitely not nice to gas people, is it that much of a worse action than blowing them up with high explosives that it defines a "red line" requiring American intervention? For this mindset, I blame the previous Administration.

In coming up with a justification for attacking Iraq, the Bush Administration settled on the possession of "weapons of mass destruction" as a causus belli. I always thought they should go with either 1) the Iraqis are continually shooting at our planes enforcing the UN-authorized "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq, or 2) we got attacked on 9/11, and therefore we, as a sovereign country and the baddest-ass dude on the planet, claim the right to overthrow the governments of 1-3 countries we don't like whenever we get attacked, and if the rest of the world doesn't like it, they can suck it. [Note: (1) would probably be the easiest to justify.] I'm guessing they focus-grouped the potential reasons and came up with WMDs as the one that polled best, and, let's face it, it was a "slam dunk" that Iraq had chemical weapons. (The last line was clearly writ ironical, as subsequent history has shown, but at the time everyone "knew" the Iraqis still had chemicals and nerve agents -- they had used chemical weapons in the '80s against Iran and still had them in 1991, based on the evidence we found when we went into southern Iraq in the First Gulf War. It took us some time after the war to get our intelligence assets into place, but we figured that we had confirmation in 1995 from the Kamel defection. Since we didn't see any indication that any weapons were being destroyed after 1995, when we had assets in place, and since we didn't believe Kamel's public statements that everything had been destroyed before that, we were pretty sure they still had WMDs.)

If we do attack with a previously-stated restriction that there won't be "boots on the ground", would this be enough to "deter" other states, or even Syria, from continuing to use chemical weapons? What if a tyrant is willing to trade having $100 million worth of crappy Russian weapons and a few empty buildings destroyed in exchange for us using $250 million worth of Tomahawks, especially if the tyrant gets the support of the "America is always wrong" crowd to boot? Suppose we were to say "You Arabs don't like chemical weapons being used in your part of the world? Let the Arab League handle it."? While I'm adamantly opposed to the isolationist/Ronulan view that we need to bring all our troops home, why can't we just let two groups who both hate us continue to kill each other while we stand aside?

For the upcoming Congressional debate, there is one thing of which I'm sure -- I really want the debate to be over "should the U.S. intervene in Syria and, in general, be the world's policeman" and nothing else. I really hope the House doesn't attach some dumb-ass "repeal Obamacare" amendment that would turn the debate into a cheap political stunt, but I'm not very hopeful on that score. I want to see Congress do their job and debate this important issue. And I kind of hope they reach a consensus that it's not our job to intervene unilaterally. (Note that if Turkey, a NATO ally, goes to NATO with a request to intervene since they fear the Syrian chemical weapons will be used against them, we should eagerly join in a NATO effort. Since, as I mentioned above, I almost always support an opportunity to blow up Ba'athist air defense and command-and-control infrastructure.)

[Also, kind of off-topic, I've been really disappointed in the "amateur hour" nature of the Administration's response to the whole thing. I don't think the new SecState is really up to the job.]

What do you think? Should we attack Syria?

It Can Now Be Told

The Navy finally announced that USS Nimitz (CVN 68) will be the carrier replacing USS Eisenhower (CVN 69) in the Fifth Fleet AOR this spring. Excerpt:

The Nimitz carrier strike group will sail from San Diego for the gulf on Monday, a navy spokesman said. It will replace the Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Strike groups typically include four or five frigates and destroyers and a submarine.
"You are looking at the early part of May that you would have the transition. It would be without any overlap. There is no plan to overlap them at all," Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis said by telephone from naval headquarters in Washington.

Once again, we can expect those moonbats who think we're about to attack Iran to claim that this is the "final piece" to the attack puzzle (although, last fall, the Eisenhower's deployment was supposed to be the final piece). Expect that news of the Eisenhower leaving the AOR the same day the Nimitz arrives to be ignored or painted as a ridiculous "now the Eisenhower can attack from the Mediterranean" theory.

That is not my doing. I merely foretell.

(Bonus geek points to whoever can identify the source of the line above without Googling.)

Update 2326 30 March: And it starts...

A Sub Story Almost Too Stupid To Mention

I hesitate to even mention this, but some website called ThreatsWatch.org has a story up about how Al Qaeda submarines might attack Saudi oil terminals (discussion of a possible attack on those was in the news last week). Here's part of what the ThreatsWatch article says:

In an MSNBC interview with Dr. Walid Phares early Saturday, there was mention of intelligence that the threat to the Saudi offshore facility may have included the use of a submarine. Dr. Phares posited that such equipment may, if in fact accurate, be provided by Iran for such an attack.
At first glance, the use of a submarine in such an attack seems a remote possibility. Yet, in contemplating possible attack tactics and equipment and the MSNBC mention of submarines, it brings to mind the attempts in the late 1990’s of a Philippine terrorist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, to purchase a mini-submarine from North Korea. The equipment was never delivered, but that was not due to any North Korean reluctance to sell arms – including the mini-submarine - to terrorist organizations

The article goes on to talk more about the supposed MILF submarine deal. (Off topic -- do those Filipino terrorists know how amusing their acronym is when written in English, as the article does several times?) This important thing to realize is that if Al Qaeda does have a submarine, they'd need Iranian assistance in getting it into position, and as much as many of us wouldn't put anything past the Revolutionary Guard jihadis, I personally think that the Iranian leadership isn't suicidal enough to authorize anything that would have their fingerprints on it so clearly. I think we can safely discount the threat of Al Qaeda submarines to Saudi oil terminals.

"You Make Me Wanna La-La"

My good friend Rob at Rob's Blog (who is also a contributor at the group submarine blog Ultraquiet No More, now featuring a new image banner!) has had several posts on the "Downing Street Memos" ("DSM" for those who lurk around at DU) and what they mean. Rob has been significantly more restrained than many on the left regarding the significance of this memo (which I first blogged about over five weeks ago), but he asks a question that I believe deserves an answer:

"Interesting...the right wing so much as says "yep, the Downing Street Memo is nothing new...shows what you figured all along, Iraq was a preconceived war"...yet that is considered OK by them.
"The mindset over there in rightwing nutjob land just amazes me. When something comes out lending real credence to what many of us on the left felt was the case all along (the "fixing" of intelligence to fit Bush's agenda, truth be damned), the right not only acknowleges it, but implies that said practice is acceptable." [Emphasis mine]

For those who are interested, the supposed actual text of the "Downing Street Memos" can be found here. As Rob points out, which many on the left don't understand, this memo is not a "smoking gun" that could lead to impeachment. After all, if the memo is sooooo clear that the WMD intelligence was to be "fixed" (implying that the Brits and Americans knew he had no WMDs, and would fake the intel needed) why does the same memo then discuss potential military/humanitarian problems associated with the use of these "non-existent" WMDs? (Para. b.iii; Intel Source: the beautiful and talented Cassandra). They didn't exist, but we have to plan for how to handle their potential employment against our troops?

My point of posting here is to give my answer to Rob's question on why "the right" doesn't think that the concept of a U.S. President deciding to move towards war with an adversary before he gets Congressional authorization is not that big of a shock; and, more broadly, discuss the gulf that exists between what I refer to as the "idealists" and "realists". ("Idealists" is a nicer phrase than "moonbats" -- please note that I am opposed to moonbats of all stripes, be they the "an American sub sank the Kursk" moonbats on the left or the "Bill and/or Hillary killed Vince Foster" moonbats on the right -- they all live in "la-la" land as far as I'm concerned.)

First off, I'll start with a blatantly unprovable fact: The only people who truly believed that Iraq didn't have WMDs were the same people who believed that an American overthrow of the Taliban would result in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths during the next winter from famine -- basically, there weren't any reliable nay-sayers. (And don't bring up Scott Ritter -- how is that prediction of a U.S. attack on Iran this month looking?)

Here's another one: The only people who didn't believe that President Bush hadn't already made up his mind to overthrow Saddam if given the opportunity when he started threatening to do so really don't understand how the world works. Now, if some Senator believed that in voting for the use of force resolution in October 2002 that he wasn't giving authorization to the President to use force without another vote, do we really want someone that gullible to be President? What should the President have done? Rob blogged earlier this week about the current difficulties with North Korea. At this point, we haven't decided to go to war with North Korea, but you can be sure we're looking at options. Should President Bush get a congressional authorization for war with North Korea now, and then decide later whether or not to attack? How do you think Pyongyang would react to this little piece of political theater? Remember some of Rep. Conyers complaints in his letter on the DSM: "...the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action." Whoa, they agreed to invade before they even invaded? I'm sure the Rep. Conyers would have been happier had we invaded first, and then decided to invade. Jeez... Does he honestly think that anyone not already a committed Democratic voter will give a rat's ass that the President doesn't go around willy-nilly asking for congressional authorizations to attack any country that he might someday decide to attack, but hasn't yet?

See, that's the way the world works; when international diplomacy is involved, people say one thing, and do another. Everyone is Washington understands that... in fact, everyone in positions of responsibility throughout the world understands that. Rep. Conyers and now Sen. Kennedy are making a big deal out of this memo, not because they believe that this will prove the President is guilty of impeachable offenses, but because it energizes their base. (Rep. McKinney, on the other hand, probably does believe all the crap she spews out...) Now, I know it'd be nice if we could live in a world where all diplomacy is completely above-board, but this world ain't it... yet. (Even today, when President Bush is still claiming that he hadn't made up his mind to invade until early 2003, is a form of politically-expedient double-speak that everyone should understand is done because it's expected. Be honest, Rob -- do you really think Sen. Clinton hasn't decided if she's going to run for President in 2008? If it comes out that she has already decided to go that direction -- will you call her a liar?)

Here's another thing that everyone who had studied the relationship between Iraq and the U.S. knew: We had several reasons (from our perspective, not necessarily what the world at large would agree to) for going to war with Iraq; the WMD was decided on as the most easily explainable to the largest number of people. They didn't have to "fix" the intel; the intel they had, including the U.N. report that contained the Iraqi-provided list of WMDs they said they had in the mid-90s, all said he hadn't destroyed them all since then. (It looks like now, of course, that they lied when the Iraqis said they had them in the mid-90s; we were looking for evidence of them destroying things that didn't exist; no wonder we couldn't find it. An understandable mistake, though; in any intelligence estimate, you have to start with certain assumptions; we assumed the Iraqis wouldn't put themselves on report for things they didn't do -- more proof that we didn't understand the Arab mindset). The reasons we had for going to war, some of which I personally witnessed, included: A complete disregard of the oil embargo imposed by the UN, continuing to shoot at our planes patrolling the No-Fly zones, and kicking out the UN weapon's inspectors in 1998. We could have, in response to any of those, simply declared the cease-fire ending the 1991 war null and void, and marched in. In retrospect, that probably would have been more useful than what we did; on the other hand, I'm not sure we could have gotten British support for that move.

Only history will tell if we did the right thing by going into Iraq; who knows if a dying Saddam, still in power, with his dreams of becoming the next Nebuchadnezzar unfulfilled, would have reached out in a last spasm of violence? I've written before about why I think that opening an Iraqi theater in the Global War on Terror was the right thing to do from the standpoint of deterrence; I still think it was right, although I do think we've dropped the ball on the follow-through by showing weakness that tends to mitigate any fear we had gotten from our enemies.

So this, Rob, is my answer: I don't think the "Downing Street Memos" are a big deal because they don't tell us anything that people who really understand how politics work didn't already know; all administrations have said one thing on matters of war and peace and done another behind closed doors, and they'll continue to do so until some future Wilsonian leader changes the way the whole world does business. That time isn't now... Besides, what would an investigation into the DSM show? That the President doesn't conduct all diplomacy in a completely above-board manner when we're at war? Remember, Rob, you're trying to change the mind of the 20% or so who might conceivably vote for either candidate in an election; having Democrats saying things to the effect of "we shouldn't have any secrets from our potential enemies" won't help you out there.

The leaders on the left understand this as well as do the leaders on the right. Democrats who are bringing this up now are playing to their base; those in the rank-and-file who invest time, money, and effort in trying to see their dreams of the neo-cons all doing a perp-walk come to fruitition are, I'm sad to say, delusional at best. It won't happen. What does Rep. Conyers get out of having all these people sign some petition? A whole bunch of "live" E-mail addresses to use for subsequent fund-raising efforts. While there are those "idealists" who think that a world built along the lines of John Lennon's "Imagine" would be a utopia, I believe that such sentiments are along the order of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" -- an unrealistic pipe dream that totally overlooks the realities of human nature. Democrats are playing for the votes of these people, plain and simple. Whether this will help them get the votes of enough "realists" to return to being a viable force in American politics is yet to be seen -- but I don't think this is the way to do it.

So Much To Blog... So Little Time

There are quite a few interesting things going on in the submarine world today, and here I am without enough time to blog about them. Hopefully I'll get back to them, but until then, here are some snippets:

1) The CO and former XO of the USS Minneapolis-St. Paul (SSN 708) received punitive letters of reprimand for the incident in which two crew members lost their lives when they were washed overboard late last year. From the Stars and Stripes:

Rear Adm. Jeff Fowler, commander of Submarine Group 8, conducted five nonjudicial punishment hearings Tuesday related to the Dec. 29 incident and issued letters of reprimand for the top two officers, said Lt. Chris Servello, a spokesman with Naval Forces Europe/6th Fleet. Fowler dismissed charges against three other crewmembers: two officers and a chief petty officer, Servello said.
The sub’s commander, Cmdr. Edwin Ruff, took command of the Minneapolis-St. Paul in December 2004. Servello declined to name the former executive officer, citing privacy laws. Typically, information on nonjudicial punishment hearings is not released publicly. The former executive officer had been replaced because of a normal rotational cycle, not because of the incident.
“The decision made today was made in the best interest of crew safety and future mission success,” Servello said when asked why Fowler decided to keep Ruff as commander.

From what I've heard about the accident, this seems like a fair resolution. I knew then-Captain Fowler when he was CSS-3, and I always thought he seemed like an outstanding leader. This decision on his part bears that out, IMHO.

2) My "favorite" writer for Soldiers For The Truth, Lt. Raymond Perry USN (Ret.), is still writing about submarines -- in this case, the recent collision between USS Newport News (SSN 750) and a Japanese tanker. I haven't had a chance to really check the article for evidence of asshattedness (only for poor spelling in the first 4 paragraphs, like "contruction" and "quntity"), but I expect to find some soon.

3) Today's the 52nd anniversary of USS Nautilus' first underway on nuclear power. Here's what I wrote for the 50th anniversary.

4) Strategy Page has a story up on the recent submarine accidents and the Stand Down. Part of it says that "...now the admirals are paying more attention to the chiefs (Chief Petty Officers, senior NCOs) complaints about how much tighter things were back-in-the-day." Whenever I asked crusty old Master Chiefs what things were like "back-in-the-day", they talked about a lot more grab-ass and significantly easier drill scenarios. So what's the real story? (Personally, I think it's a combination of 1) operating a lot closer to traffic lanes, and 2) having every little hiccup make the press, that's making it look like the Sub Force isn't doing as well nowadays.)

5) A reader pointed out this photo in the SubSim coverage of the USS Texas (SSN 775) media embark last August; the caption says: "The COB dispensing liberty passes". Look at the photo in the link above and see if you can see "what's wrong with this picture".

Doesn't it seem like there are a lot of petty officers with dolphins lining up for liberty cards? Was that just a photo op for the press, or is there some new requirement for qualified NCOs to have liberty cards?

6) Almost forgot this one -- a former Russian admiral has an explanation for the USS Newport News collision:

Former Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Admiral Edward Baltin said Tuesday that the presence of so many nuclear submarines in the Arab Gulf waters pointed to likely plans for a US attack against Iran.
Baltin, who was quoted by Interfax news agency, said the presence of US submarines in Gulf waters meant that Washington was contemplating a strike against Iran.
"The presence of the submarines indicates that Washington has not abandoned plans to launch a sudden attack against Iran," the admiral said.
He blamed Monday's collision between a US submarine and a Japanese sea liner near the Strait of Hormuz on the fact that US submarines needed to sail relatively higher than their usual depths to get clearer vision enabling them to zero in on likely targets.

[Emphasis mine] And this guy's a former submariner, too. No wonder we kicked their asses in the Cold War.

Why The Republicans Are Losing My Vote

The 2006 midterm elections are six months from today, and I'm in somewhat of a quandary. I've been a Republican my whole life; I've voted for a couple of Democrats for Senator and Governor when I was in the Navy, but Nebraska Democrats would pretty much be Republicans anywhere else. This year, though, I'm afraid I'm going to do something that I never thought would happen -- if the election were held today, I'd vote for Democrats pretty much across the board.

Normally, that's not a big deal in a non-Senatorial midterm election. This year, though, the Idaho 1st District Congressional seat is open, and if current trends continue, it could be one of the seats that decides who controls the House. I'm planning on voting for Democrat Larry Grant not only because he seems to be the best candidate, but also to send a message to the Administration and the Congressional Republicans as a whole -- you had your chance, but you screwed it up, and if you don't straighten up right away, We The People are going to replace you with someone different -- maybe not better, but they couldn't be worse.

What have the Administration and Republican legislators done to make me change my mind that Republicans are normally the best option during times of trouble? I have three main reasons: lack of competence, lack of fiscal and ethical responsibility, and most importantly, lack of steadfastness in prosecuting the War on Terror.

In the past, Republicans have been known as being more "competent" that Democrats; Dave Barry once wrote that if your car was broken down on the side of the road, a Republican would drive by without stopping; a Democrat would stop, but would accidentally burn your car to the ground in the process of trying to help. I've always thought that this was because Republicans, more interested in the "bottom line", would hire staffers based on who could do the best job, whereas Dems were driven more by ideology. The current crop of Republicans, though, seems to be just as ideologically-driven as the most progressive Dems; while Dems believe that people won't try to take advantage of you when you offer to do things for them that they should be doing for themselves, the "new Republicans" seem to operate under the assumption that it'll all work out no matter if they work hard or not, because God is on their side. I haven't seen much real-world evidence that either belief is true.

When I was at CENTCOM, I didn't work directly with the political appointees in D.C., but I worked with the people who went to meetings with them. It was then that I started realizing that the civilians we had in charge either weren't aware, or didn't care, that you couldn't just assume that "everything would work out" -- to use an old Sub Force saying, "You get what you inspect, not what you expect". The "Staffer's Hard Sayings Log" is full of examples of frustration from people trying their best to accomplish objectives that had no basis in reality, but it was something that the civilian leadership in D.C. thought would be a "good idea". That's the kind of thing you expected to have to do when Dems were in control, not Republicans -- until the last few years, at least…

Republicans currently in charge of Congress don't seem to me to be Conservative at all, if by "Conservative" you mean supporting less government intrusion in our lives and concern about increased government spending. They've run up huge deficits while arrogantly refusing to cut pork, and have no one to blame but themselves -- they control the whole budget process. Their recent attempt to "reform" ethics is, quite simply, a joke -- it's as if they don't even care that the voters know it's a sham. Why can't they even pretend to give up their boondoggle overseas "fact-finding" trips?

The last straw for me, though, is the failure of the Administration to prosecute the Global War On Terror with the level of intensity that I think is required. They started off pretty well, but somewhere they lost the way. I believed President Bush when he told the world that, "If you're not with us, you're against us". Coming up on five years later, we have the remnants of Al Qaeda's leadership hiding in NW Pakistan, and all we can do is an occasional Predator attack. I understand that it would be diplomatically difficult to get boots on the ground there, but I believe that had President Bush kept his eye on the ball, we could have convinced the Pakistani leadership to let us in. Likewise, I liked the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, but the Administration's failure to understand the Arab mindset, as well as failing to adequately explain to the American people why this was important (hint: WMDs weren't the main reason, but it was the most convenient reason) was a huge missed opportunity from which it'll take a while for us to recover. Just as disappointing to me is the Republican's failure to ask those of us not on active duty (or their loved ones) to sacrifice for the war effort. The continued emphasis on tax cuts during wartime sends the exact wrong message, as well as contributing to an obscene bloating of the federal deficit.

Some might say that it would send the wrong message to our enemies to change horses in mid-stream; I say that this concern isn't valid, and here's why. Secretary Rumsfeld is right that this is going to be a long war; we can't expect to keep the same party in power for a generation or more (especially if they aren't serious about prosecuting the war). I think that when our enemies see that the Democrats are willing to continue the war (which they will; they're even more poll-driven than the Republicans, and scared to death of being seen as weak on national security) they'll come to realize that they don't just have to wait for a change in American politics. And honestly, it'll be hard for President Bush to legitimately open another front in the War. I don't think we'll have to attack Iran -- this will be a chance for a "Cold War" style victory for us in the GWOT. (We've already seen tensions between the Revolutionary Guard and regular Iranian armed forces that we should be able to exploit if we're smart.) If we do end up needing to go into Iran, I'd say that as only Nixon could go to China, only [insert Democrat's name here] could occupy Teheran -- that's political reality.

My bottom line: The Republicans currently in power have, through intellectual laziness, greed, and lack of vision, squandered an opportunity to lead the nation, and the world, into the new century. It's time for them to be pushed aside and let someone else try. And if they nominate a screwball for President in 2008 (and the Dems cast aside their recent history and nominate someone who isn't ridiculous) I could even see myself voting for a Democrat for President. I'm not there yet, but I could almost see myself going there is the Republicans don't straighten up.

Don't get me wrong; Idaho Dems aren't perfect. They have their share of moonbats, but the tin-foil hatters seem to be pretty marginalized from any actual political power; you only hear about them from their websites and on the Letters To The Editor page of the paper. Idaho Republicans, on the other hand, seem to not only listen to the black helicopter crowd, they even occasionally elect one of them to Congress. I don't want to be a part of that.

Standing by for incoming...

Update 1923 07 May: Chrys has some good thoughts she put up on her blog, and Sara mentions my post over at her place.

Remaking The Navy's Officer Culture?

William Lind, best known recently for being completely wrong about his prediction that the U.S. would attack Iran in 2006 and for completely misunderstanding the significance of the "Chinese Song vs. Kitty Hawk" episode, is now holding forth in a new book about what he sees are needed changes in the U.S. Navy. Not surprisingly, given his previous distaste for understanding how the world works, he wants the U.S. to be more like the British Navy:

Lind, who wrote the book’s Navy chapter, contrasts the dominance of engineers in the Navy to what he describes as the preference for tacticians elsewhere. All U.S. submarine skippers are nuclear engineers, “in strong contrast to Britain’s Royal Navy, whose submarine commanders have nuclear engineers where they belong, in the engine room,” Lind wrote.
The first step to remaking the Navy’s officer culture is remaking the Naval Academy, Lind says. The curriculum at Annapolis should focus on “war-fighting,” he writes, rather than engineering, and male and female midshipmen should be educated separately. Co-ed classes create a “stultifying air of political correctness,” Lind wrote. He also recommends sweeping changes to the fleet. The Navy should mothball its Aegis warships, he wrote, because it will never fight an open-ocean war against a peer competitor such as China or Russia. It should use aircraft carriers as cargo ships, carrying supplies or helicopters, if needed, rather than fixed-wing planes.
Lind also recommends the Navy develop its own carrier-launched low-level ground-attack aircraft. The F/A-18 Hornet isn’t built to orbit a battlefield and carry heavy ordnance loads, he wrote, even though that mission will be in ever greater demand.

So what do you think? Should we follow Lind's advice and become more like the Royal Navy? Or are we doing a fairly good job as it is?

Another Long, Boring Sea Story

So there I was... the first deployment of the USS Topeka (SSN 754) in November 1992. We were the first American submarine known to enter the Arabian (Persian) Gulf; the first Iranian Kilo-class submarine was on her way to Iran from Russia, and Big Navy wanted to see if the Gulf was suitable for submarine operations. (Iran currently has three of these submarines.) Here's how the Washington Report described this historic deployment:
In a demonstration of America's commitment to the region, the Navy sent the nuclear-powered attack submarine U.S.S. Topeka into the Gulf shortly after Iran's first Kilo submarine arrived in November 1992.
Here was an article in the USA Today on November 5, 1992:
TOPEKA HEADS INTO PERSIAN GULF: The USS Topeka, the first submarine known to enter the Persian Gulf, steamed toward the center of the strategic waterway Wednesday, days ahead of a sub that Iran has purchased from Russia. The nuclear-powered sub appeared to be heading to the gulf as a reminder of U.S. regional strength.
Okay, so the two articles don't agree on the timeline of Topeka arrival vs. Kilo arrival (Topeka was there first). Bottom line, it was an important deployment, so the Navy didn't want any junior officers messing it up.
So I'm standing Contact Coordinator as we're cruising west on the surface across the Central Arabian Gulf towards Mina Sulman, Bahrain. We're going there because the submarine tender USS Dixon (AS-37) was there, and we were going to tie up to her the next morning for a three week upkeep. (This throws a little cold water on the account of our deployment in Blind Man's Bluff. That book says we went into the Gulf to monitor the deployment of the Iranian Kilo, which I suppose we could have done if the Kilo had gotten lost and pulled up to the pier next to us. In all fairness to the authors, that's what most of the contemporary press reports said we were doing.) The sun is going down, there's a crescent moon out, and it's really, really dusty, even 100 miles from land. As Contact Coordinator, I'm responsible for keeping a lookout with the periscope, figuring out what all the other sea-going traffic is doing, and advising the Officer of the Deck how to avoid said traffic. There's not much traffic around, and we were pretty upbeat after having gotten rid of the Iranian P-3 that had been following us most of the day. As the sun finally sets, I find that I can't see the horizon at all, due to all the dust. Even worse, I picked up a light directly astern of us that hadn't been there before. Could it be an Iranian patrol boat coming to ram us at night? I did an observation (gave the bearing and range to the Fire Control Party) , designated the contact as Victor (visual target) - 38, and conscientiously reported the new contact to the bridge; I figured it was about 10 miles behind us, since that was about how far the horizon was. After another sweep, I did another observation. The light was still directly astern of us, coming straight from the Iranian coast. They must be following us! After I did a third observation, and the contact hadn't changed in bearing by even a tenth of a degree, a horrible realization came over me. Simultaneously, my FTOW asked, "Sir, are you tracking our stern light?" I was, and all I could say was "Drop Victor 38". I don't think I ever lived that one down, no matter how much I reminded the crew of my fellow officer who had tracked an island in the Tsushima Straits for half an hour, even giving it a speed of 5 knots.

OK, it was funny if you were there. It was either post this, or a discussion on how my suggestion for the ship's motto for the USS Connecticut (SSN-22) ("We regret that our enemies have but one life to give for their country") was better than the one actually chosen ("Arsenal of the Nation").

Bell-ringer 0911 10 Feb: Based on a comment, I added "American" to the second sentence to more closely reflect reality. Here's an account that discusses possible British submarine operations in the Gulf during the 1991 Gulf War.

Submarines Did Not Cause The Internet Cable Breaks

As I mentioned earlier, I've been wondering how to address conspiracy theorists who claim a U.S. submarine -- specifically my old boat USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) -- was behind the recent breaking of submerged internet cables in the Middle East. I've figured out how to do it -- by stipulating to the tinfoil hatter's assumption that USS Jimmy Carter has the ability to tap into underwater cables, and then showing logically why they didn't do it, even if they could have.

First let's take care of the easiest one -- that USS Jimmy Carter is responsible for, or will take advantage of, the recent cable breaks. (One theory I've seen is that the cables were broken by some non-specialized ship, and that Carter will attach the "black box" at some other location so as not to be detected.) USS Jimmy Carter was in port in Bangor as recently as January 17th, and one 'net commenter reported that they could see the boat inport on Thursday from the ferry. One might wonder why a submarine blogger would go out on a limb and only use an Internet commenter as a source for his "fact" when he probably has friends still on the boat, and could just contact them to find out if the boat is still in port. One might then consider that there must be a reason said sub-blogger is so confident that the boat is still in port. Seeing that it's about 10,000 miles from Bangor to the Med (unless you go through the Bering Straits in January) it would be very problematic for the Carter to get there between January 17th and when the cables started getting cut in late January.

So if the Carter didn't do it, did another U.S. submarine? Let's look at motive. Some say that the U.S. did it to stop the opening of an Iranian Oil Bourse that's been threatened for years -- apparently, this will destroy the U.S. economy by trading in Euros instead of dollars. The reasons why such a market wouldn't destroy the U.S. economy are so simple that even a KOSsack can understand them. Others say it was a prelude to an attack on Iran -- an attack that apparently got called off, because Iran never really lost Internet connectivity.

Suppose we were trying to tap the cables? What the hell good would that do? These aren't voice cables, like the ones we supposedly tapped in the Sea of O and described in Blind Man's Bluff. These are packet data cables. An Internet connectivity "pipe" would carry literally terabytes of data -- more than you could store in some black box undersea. Besides, Internet traffic gets routed all over the world; a good part of it probably comes through U.S. or UK servers anyway. It just doesn't make any sense to "tap" an undersea Internet cable -- there's just too much data that's too easily available by other means.

The fact is, undersea internet cables break on the average of once every three days. Statistically, you're going to have a cluster of such breaks once in a while. It's especially not a U.S.-Israeli conspiracy when they find the anchor that cut one of the cables... unless you believe the Carter left that behind to fool the gullible. If you believe that, I've got some options on the Iranian Oil Bourse to sell you.