# The Gantry Launchpad

Focused on Space, Science, Politics, Really cool rockets, Music, and Movies

## April 30, 2004

### Arrrgh!

Great. I just noticed I'm now getting porn spam comments.

Wonderful....

Oh, well, time to install that plug-in. :-)

And, YES, mt-blacklist works its potent mojo on evil spambots!!

Urk. Now Lachlan has me doing it; I"m singing She Dropped Da Bomb On Me while I'm despamming the blog... Heh.

Posted by Casey at 05:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

### Happledy Birfday!

Lisa of just a girl in the world has a birthday today. I am reliably informed that this is the tenth time she's turned 21...

Heh.

Drop on by and wish her happledy birfday.

Posted by Casey at 05:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## April 28, 2004

### The Final Mile

Take a look at the real America as they honor one of the fallen.

Read this, published by Blackfive.

Thanks to Dean for the link.

Posted by Casey at 02:19 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

### While you were out...

I may not be posting as much here for a bit, since I'm guest-blogging at the ever-impressive Dean's World.

Drop on by....

Posted by Casey at 03:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## April 26, 2004

### Yet Another Reason why I don't trust the government

As Jerry Pournelle observed when someone sent him this article.

"As I understand it, the original Social Security Act promised that the Social Security Number would never become a national ID number, nor SS Number be used for identification. So it goes."

But, but, I thought that we could trust the government! Yeah.

This is exactly why I am generally opposed to government intervention into sociey. No matter how well-intentioned a program starts out, it spawns ugly unintended consequences, becomes a political football, or both.

How do you think that poor guy who's Social Security number was hijacked by terrorists feels?

Posted by Casey at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## April 25, 2004

### Beam me up, Garrovik!

"These are the voyages of the starship Exeter..."

Ok, hold on just a second. We all know it's the Enterprise, right?

Well, no. Not if you're part of the crew of the Starship Exeter!

It took them seven years, but these folks create their own Star Trek fan movie, based on the original Series (TOS) timeline. The home base of the movie is the U.S.S. Exeter NCC-1706, commanded by Captain Garrovik. From their website:

"The U.S.S. Exeter, freshly recrewed and commanded by Captain John Garrovick, is on a mission to save a ship infected with the deadly Canopus Plague. The Exeter must travel to the homeworld of Andorian Lieutenant B'fuselek to find the cure. But Andorian rebels have other plans . . . and so do the Klingons!

STARSHIP EXETER "The Savage Empire" is an original self-produced pilot intended as a concept for a new television serial based on the look and feel of the 'Original Series.' With an eye for detail, the sets, props, costumes, and visual effects were all painstakingly reproduced by amatuers on a shoestring budget in exacting 1960's style."

I dropped by their site, and I was very impressed by the quality of their work. The miniatures were made by Thomas Sasser, who created the master for the new Polar Lights U.S.S Enterprise kit currently in toy stores and hobby shops. That kit has been hailed as the most accurate mass-produced kit ever made of the original Enterprise.

You can even watch Starship: Exeter online if you like! So if you're a fan of the original series, run -do not walk- here and check out their great work. Or if you just want to watch the movie, click here.

warning: you need broadband, or a lot of patience. the teaser/titles part is 25 megabytes long all by its lonesome.

Posted by Casey at 09:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

### Um, that's not good...

Over at the Command Post they have a link to a CNN story that says"

"Iraqis in Najaf are stockpiling weapons in mosques, shrines and in schools, Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor said, while U.S. forces remained deployed outside the city." (emphasis added)

This is not a good thing. The next few weeks should prove instructive...

To all the servicemen and women in Iraq: keep your head down, and Godspeed.

Posted by Casey at 04:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

### That's no moon, that's a SPACE STATION!!

Sorry, but I had to use that title. Nothing else can convey the awe, the majesty, and (considering the reference in Twister) the sheer mind-number terror inspired by

THE QUEEN OF ALL EVIL

AKA Rosemary Esmay, formerly of Dean's World. Welcome to the blogosphere!

Why "formerly"? Because while Rose has been writing on Dean's World for a while, she finally decided her own wings were strong.

Please note that this member of the Royally Dark Side is a registered Republican, and yes shep, I know you think that's redundant! :) But Rose is an equal-opportunity abuser: she'll beat up on anyone if they deserve it.

So if you have a rude sense of humor, and like hot polish women with huge... tracts of land, run over and pay the Queen a visit.

Almost forgot. Her Royal Sinisterity asked for "link love." Here you go, girl!

P.S. I put you in a special place on my sidebar as a "welcome" gift.

Posted by Casey at 04:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## April 24, 2004

### Ancient History, part 2

(continued from part 1)

I don't want to piss off the Appleciders out there, but the late '83/early '84 lineup was pretty ugly. The Mac hadn't come out yet, while the Apple III (AKA the "pop-up toaster") and the Lisa did not inspire confidence. Cross it off the list.

The DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Rainbow was interesting. It could run CP/M-80, CP/M-86 (IIRC a dual processor design), but was bloody expensive. It was also different enough from standard CP/M machines that I crossed that one off the list as well.

So it all came down to the IBM PC, and the Epson QX-10.

From my research at the time, a standard IBM PC didn't pack a whole lot of punch for the money. It included 64K RAM and one 5.25" 160K single-sided floppy, a monochrome (AKA text-only) monitor, and MS-DOS 1.0 (a copy of CP/M), and not much else. Even I knew, back then, that MS-DOS was not a mature product as was CP/M, nor was there nearly the same amount of sofware available for MS-DOS. Not to mention that with the IBM PC, everything was extra!

Let's match them up, head-to-head:
Main cpu: PC had an 8-bit 8088 @4.77Mz, while the QX-10 had an 8-bit Z80 @3.5Mz.
RAM: PC came standard with 64K, while the QX-10 carried 256K
Storage: PC started with one single-sided 160K floppy. The QX-10 came standard with two 380K floppies.
Video: base PC had monochrome (text-only), and while the QX-10 was technically "mono" (green screen) only as well, it could output a high-quality 640x400 text font (compared to the CGA 640x200 and the MGA mono 742x350) and graphics at the same resolution, compared to the above "high" resolution CGA. "Hi-color" CGA graphics (i.e. 4 colors) displayed at impressive 320x200.

With the PC, everything was extra. Printer port? Extra. Serial port? Extra. Etc., etc. Entire companies got their start from supplying add-ins to the PC.

The QX-10. on the other hand, came standard with an RS-232 parallel port, a standard Centronics printer port, AND a light-pen port! Mind you, you could match the QX-10, feature for feature, but it would kick up the price nearly a grand...

MS-DOS had just recently been released, and (as one person put it to me at the time) "the only software it (the PC) comes with is a buggy word processor."

CP/M, on the other hand, was a mature operating system with a large variety of software available, not to mention the Epson-specific Valdocs package, which included one of the earliest mass-market "what you see is what you get" word processors. Italics showed up on the screen as italics. Boldface the same. It was scary.

Hell, the Epson was even prettier than the PC! Follow the link above. The QX-10 was one of the nicest designs that never came out of Apple computers. Consider the esthetics: while the PC featured full-height floppy drives, the QX-10 featured third-height drives, where even half-height drives didn't become popular in the PC world until the AT.

And I have to say it: check the link. Look closely at the photos of the QX-10 keyboard layout. Coincidence? I think not! Heh.

Bottom line: feature for feature, the Epson QX-10 was superior to the IBM PC in every way.

Well, except for a single detail: the three letters "I", "B", "M".

Whoopsie. That's when I learned my first computer lesson: market share trumps brilliance.

This is why I never seriously considered buying an Apple.

(to be continued...)

Posted by Casey at 02:12 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

### Ancient History, part 1

AKA "Ah, the Good Old Days."

I've been telling several folks often enough that I was going to write about the Good Old Days, and it's about time that I put pen to paper. Please note that these articles are based on personal experience, and are not neccessarily exhaustive. :)

One of the motivators of this article was Paul Burgess, but a month or so back Dean Esmay wrote a nostalgic article about his Good Old Times, and I didn't want to look like a copycat. It turns out that article was Paul's fault, too!

Well, Paul, here you go.

My first experience with computers goes back to 1977, the year I graduated from high school. That spring a friend in the school Math Club showed me a wonderful new device called a "terminal." The terminal in question was teletype machine, and it was state of the art: it had a paper-tape punch and reader, so you could load or store your own programs.

The terminal was hooked up to SWORCC (Sourth Western Ohio Regional Computer Center), pronounded "swork." There was a generic account for the high school we could use to log on, and I'm embarassed to say I have no idea was operating system the mainframe was using at the time. I was still entranced by the "the machine is talking to me" phenomenon.

Mostly what we used the account for was loading BASIC programs then running them. We had no storage on the mainframe, so everything had to be stored locally. We would type in our programs, line by line, then when we "saved" them, the TTY would basically "play back" all the keystrokes we had entered, including typos, backspaces, and corrections, and and each keystroke would be translated to a paper-tape punch code, then punched out on the tape. After saving a long program the room would look like the aftermath of New Year's Eve celebration, what with all the round punches on the floor.

And noise? Recall any movie where you saw an old military or press teletype terminal. Crank up the volume. Put in a small room. Then add the tape puncher.

And kids thinks todays computers are "loud." Heh.

Let's fast-forward a few years. I started college late, changed majors, left, came back. It's a long story (and an ugly one), so we'll settle on my entry into the Systems Analysis program. When my father died in 1983, and left each of us some money, it occured to me that I could make my life easier if I bought a microcomputer with a FORTRAN compiler (then the standard programming language at Miami). That way I wouldn't spend hours waiting for a printout at the lab. During peak usage you could look forward to getting your results back in several hours, since the univeristy used a batch-submission system. So I could wait one or two hours just to pick up printout that told me there was syntax error in line 132... Lovely.

So I did some shopping. A LOT of shopping. A friend (who now works in a small Kentucky IT firm) had recently picked up an Apple II. Very cool. His father was very well-informed about microcomputers because of his own research, so I leaned on them a lot.

Back then, the "serious" machines all ran the CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) operating system.

CP/M (developed by Digital Research Corporation) resembled Linux in many ways. For one thing, it was possible (depending on where you bought it) to get the source code, and custom-build it for your machine configuration. For another, it ran on a wide variety of systems, from Intel 8080* CPUs, to Zilog Z80, and the Motorola 6502.

At the time, CP/M usually ran on an 8080/Z80 system. When Intel released the 8086 chip (their first 16-bit CPU), Digital Research released CP/M-86 to run on it, and started calling the more standard release CP/M-80 to differentiate between the two.

Alas, I learned most of this well after I bought my first computer. Bottom line: at the time, CP/M was the standard to which other microcomputers were compared, and I didn't want to get a toy, or a what might be a fringe machine.

It's hard to remember many of the candidates now, unless I see an old ad. I remember the Morrow Micro Decision (like most, a CP/M-based system) for example. The problem was that usually the good-quality CP/M systems were very expensive (read: $10,000+ in 1984 dollars) to build.

After I considered cost, usability, and software, my choices narrowed down to: Apple, the IBM PC, the DEC Rainbow (Intel 8086 system that could run either CP/M-80 or CP/M-86, but expensive), and... a new entry from the printer company, Epson.

*The Intel 8080 was their first mainstream 8-bit chip. The Z80 was code-compatible, much the same way that AMD chips are code-compatible with Intel today, and the 6502 was Motorola's contribution to 8-bit CPU development.

Posted by Casey at 12:36 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## April 23, 2004

### Yukk

You know, there's one thing I hate about working on old computers.

Dust bunnies... IICKKKK!

'Nuff said.

Posted by Casey at 11:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

### He shoot, he SCORES!

Frank J. is at it again, this time about Kerry's war medals.

Apparently someone has enrolled the IMAO master of Ching Ching Pao to a pro-Kerry mailing list as a joke.

In fact, Frank recently recieved a fund-raising letter from them, and his fisk of that letter included a truly classic Frankerian gem. The letter makes the obligatory mention of Kerry's Bronze Star and Silver Star, to which Frank replies:

"Why no gold star. Underachiever?"

Priceless...

Posted by Casey at 04:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

### Stop me before I Cookie again!

First they came for the joooos. Then they came for the cookies...

Now, wait just a darn minute here!

Nope, boys and girls, you're eyes aren't decieving you. The Fatherland Front office of New Jersey (actually the local school board, but same thing these days) suspended a boy for threatening a teacher with a cookie.

Just how dumb are these people, anyway?

A reverent bow to the Emperor Darth Misha for this one.

Posted by Casey at 03:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## April 19, 2004

### The continuing adventures of Frank J.

As usual, Frank J. over at IMAO has minted yet another gem of comic commentary.

It's insanely funny, as usual, and gives a whole new meaning to the term "partisan sniping."

Not to mention: "get your head out of an undisclosed location." Heh.

Posted by Casey at 04:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

## April 17, 2004

### Fog of war, postscript

Mark Adams has called me "a voice of reason" while commenting on my "Fog of War Part 2" post. As I said to him earlier, I hope he will resist the temptation to crow "you see, Bush was wrong!! Bush had no plan!!," and so on, since he is very much not a fan of the man.

This is one of the basic facts of warfare that I hope to eventually make clear to non-military folks: you don't just expect things to blow up in your face in a war: sooner or later you can guarantee it.

Here's an excellent example: in 1944 military intelligence (uh-oh, the dreaded "who knew?" effect!) indicated that several eight inch (203mm) guns were sited on the Pointe du Hoc, located on a 100-meter high cliff that provided excellent coverage of the Normandy beaches. Those guns would wreak havoc among the thin-skinned transports and assault craft during the invasion.

They handed that choice assignment to the Rangers. The morning of June 6, the Rangers climbed ropes, rope ladders, and in some cases cut hand-holds into the face of the cliff to reach the top. The Germans gunned them down mercilessly, but in the end the Rangers took Pointe du Hoc.

They also took nearly 200 casualties, both dead and wounded.

The guns weren't even there. They were several miles inland. The Germans hadn't gotten around to moving them yet.

My point here is that if today's atmosphere prevailed in 1944, at least some of the Republican Party opposition would have immediately accused the Rooseveldt administration of incompetance, poor planning, and so on.

We don't need that. That won't win this war. And -unless the reader is someone who is adamant about troops in Iraq at all, and just doesn't care what happens to the Iraqis after we leave- that sort of sniping does not help at all.

----

I'm sure at least some of the readers are wondering what I would call an "acceptable" criticism of the Bush administration. Here's one:

While the number of active-duty divisions on hand did not originally seem critical, it is becoming apparent that we need to devote at least two of them to Iraq for the forseeable future; call it 5-10 years. Even rotating brigades in and out on a regular basis won't address the fact that a minimum number of troops will be required in Iraq for a while. This puts a noticable crimp in our strategic reserve. If things go wahooni-shaped in Syria, Iran, or North Korea in the next (say) five years, our current forces would be stretched thin, to say the very least.

As far as anyone knows, the Bush administration has given no indication that they have even considered a significant increase in our active-duty forces, with "significant" being defined as at least two new divisions

It is our belief that this, combined with (other enumerated sane criticisms) shows that the current administration does not take this threat of medieval kleptocratic islamofacism seriously. That they, in fact, have assumed that an American victory is some sort of 21st-century Manifest Destiny, without serious forethought as to how our victory is, in fact, manifest.

Vote for XXX in November.

At the risk of sounding egocentric, Bush should be glad I'm not on the other side this fall... :)

Posted by Casey at 01:47 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

## April 16, 2004

### Fog of War Part 2

A few days ago, I wrote about the fog of war. After I published it, I realized I had forgotten at least one very relevant example: the bombing in Madrid, and how it affected the campaign against islamofacism.

At the time I decided that the omission wasn't that important; at least, not important enough to warrant an update in the original post.

After reading recent news articles, as well as blog posts, about the current situation in Iraq, I have decided that further comment is required.

What crystallized my decision was an article at The Command Post. Now, you'd expect a place like this would provide reporting that I would characterize as "fairly neutral, patriotic, with an undercurrent of "go git 'em, boys," but the comments on this article really threw me. It was one of the few posts I've seen with both conservatives and liberals complaining that the war was already lost.

What does this have to do with the "fog of war," and 11/M? Simple: 11/M and that article are both perfect examples of the fog in action...

Let's roll the clock back just a little bit...

On March 11, Al Qaeda islamofascists murdered over 200 people in Spain. Now, we've all read (or heard) what happened, and I'm fairly sure that most of us have managed to make up our minds whether the Spanish decision to pull out of Iraq in June is a good one, or a bad one.

My point here is the country-wide range of reactions that can be represented on a Deans World post regarding his comments about the situation here.

Now Dean misses some points, such as when the President-elect of Spain says that the "war was started by lies," so I doubt that that gentleman in question has any genuine devotion to the Coalition. On the other hand, Dean is perfectly correct to point out that Spain has agreed to keep her troops there until June, at the least.

I am sure that we've all visited our favorite blogs since then, and we've all seen predictions that this is the presage of an avalanche of appeasement from Europe, while others are quite confident of eventual success in the war on terror.

What the commenters on Dean's World missed -as have most positions elsewhere that I've seen- is that the Spanish voters made their decision based on the feeling that the Aznar administration pushed the "Basque terrorist" angle too far, too quickly, and not so much on Spaniards dying, although that probably did have some effect.

I also think that most people have overestimated the utility of some two thousand Spanish soldiers in Iraq, out of over one hundred fifty thousand. What the "calamity" party has missed is that their claim that the removal of Spanish forces tends to support the anti-war position that the coalition is primarily symbolic.

Truthfully, the Spanish troops in Iraq are the equivalent of the Jewish Brigades in World War Two. Useful? Yes. Decisive? No. Inspiring? Certainly.

In point of fact no one will be able to accurately judge the effect of the Spanish decision for several years, at least. It generally takes at least five or ten years (at minimum) to develop the proper perspective on any historical or military event.

This brings us back to the present, and the comments at The Command Post.

Both the "Iraq==Vietnam=quagmire" and the "Kill them all, God will know his own" groups are over-reacting to specific events or conditions with little regard for the proverbial big picture.

Who among the Union leaders could have predicted the fall of Vicksburgh after a long seige in July 1863, or the capture of Atlanta after a dismal summer in the fall of 1864?

What few -besides Kirchener- foresaw a long war in 1914, the use of tanks, or the methods used in 1918 to break the stalemate?

Who would have predicted the collapse of the fabled French Army in less than a month in 1940, the bizarre halt of the German armor that allowed the British escape at Dunkirk, or the monsterous resistance at Stalingrad?

Who in 1944 would have predicted that the OKW estimate of Allied divisional strength would be 150% over the actual figure, or the sincere Allied belief in the mythical "Nazi redoubt?"

I could go on, but these examples should demonstrate to anyone with an open mind that it is very difficult to predict the outcome of a war (or a campaign) with a single event, or a single battle.

In Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr is a thug, with a gang of perhaps 3,000-8,000 men. It is fatuous to describe them as representative of some sort of "Iraqi resistance." Most of the other gangs have closer relations to the Bloods and the Crips (especially with 13-16 year old members) than they do with the WW2 Maquis Resistance. On the other hand, it is unduly optimistic to think that the current situation is other than critically important.

One vital clue is that the Bush administration has altered the rules of engagement so that our soldiers can defend themselves. Bombing hitherto untouchable mosques, for example. Another clue is that the generals in charge have, for the first time, asked for an increase in manpower in-country, instead of a decrease. The administration has met that request with alacrity.

Does this mean that the current administration is doing all the right things? No. On the other hand, there are few indicators that they are substantially wrong in their approach either.

This is not a simple war; there will be no Waterloo, no fallen Atlanta, no D-Day with the practical guarantee that Germany will fall. There will be no final Star Wars battle where the Rebel Alliance defeats the Evil Empire to general applause.

This will be, as Bush said nearly three years ago, a long, drawn-out struggle. Much of it will be fought in the shadows. Those battles fought in "the light" will be misunderstood by many, if not most of the experts.

I repeat: the thing is, the trick is: not to lose your head...

Posted by Casey at 04:28 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

## April 13, 2004

### Waffles Away!

Ken Jacobson, over at Esoteric Diatribe had a good (and funny) idea.

Why not google-bomb Kerry with the word waffles the same way some squishy lib'rls did with the miserable failure thing?

A good idea, sez I! I think it would be funny to link Kerry with the word waffles. After all, waffles are square like Kerry, waffles are flat, like Kerry's delivery, and waffles are toasted, just like Kerry will be in November.

Of course, I'm excited, because I like to eat waffles in the morning.

Blueberry.

So I encourage everyone to mention waffles on their website, tell their friends to mention waffles as well, and maybe we'll get waffles up to #1 on Google.

On a (barely) more serious note, if you want to keep the rating from being degraded by the search engine, and your blog 'ware will let you, just post-date the article discussing waffles so that it stays on your main page. This makes it count more.

Or you can do what I did, and put a waffles link on your sidebar.

Happy waffles-ing, everyone!

UPDATE: Ken has told me that we're bombing waffles, not waffle. Whoopsie. All fixed, now!

Posted by Casey at 05:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

### Marines' Helping Hand

I'm stealing this link from Dean Esmay. But, just in case the five people who read this blog regularly haven't heard of it yet, make a point of visiting these people.

The Spirit of America non-profit group "enable[s] American military, Foreign Service and reconstruction personnel to submit requests for goods that will help local people. Typically, the requests are for items that established aid organizations and government bureaucracies are not designed to handle."

Whether you think BushLied(tm), or Dubya is the greatest thing to come out of Texas since Sam Houston, this is a worthy endeavor.

Surely we can all agree that the United States has a unique opportunity to make a difference in Iraq, and this group provides a way for all citizens to help.

If nothing else, it avoids bureaucratic SNAFU by listening to the "boots on the ground," and their ideas on how to contribute to people's lives.

Like the old songs say: "you can make a difference."

Posted by Casey at 02:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## April 12, 2004

### Universal Translator

Looks like Star Trek's Universal Translator is getting closer.

Today's StrategyPage on "How to make war" (scroll down to the April 12, 2004 entry) mentions some interesting developments in document reading and computer translation.

First, there's the software developed by the Language Weaver Corporation, running under Windows on a server. This package can communicate with other servers or individual PCs.

The documents are scanned to electronic form, and then translated. It isn't clear from the article whether the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) application is part of the package or not. What is interesting is that as the database of correctly translated phrases grows, accuracy increases.

Favorite sentance: "Iraq, one of the places (China and Egypt being the others) where mankind created literacy, has never lost its fondness for writing things down."

Very cool.

Next we have the Phraselator. No "Ahnuld" jokes, please! And, yes, that really is what they named it. This doodad is about the size of a PDA like a Clie, or a Visor, and can accept Flash Cards with different phrases in different languages.

All the user has to do is speak English into the Phraselator, and the appropriate translated phrase is uttered by the device. But it isn't a general translator. The phrase has to be part of a pre-defined set on the Flash Card.

The interesting thing here is that the cards are customized for specific situations, such as the "Medic" card. The phrases are constructed for a simple response such as pointing (to where it hurts, for the Medic card, or "which way did they go?" {g}), or a yes/no answer.

Favorite sentance: "the troops agree that it sure beats sign language or thumbing through a phrase book. The locals like it because it's yet another neat American gadget, and one that won't kill them as well. "

Also very cool.

Posted by Casey at 06:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

### Oh, the Irony

I caught this headline from Yahoo! News today:

Iraq Hostages Are from States That Stayed Out of War

"BAGHDAD (Reuters) - When it comes to kidnapping, the nationalities which had least to do with the Iraq war seem to be most at risk in the still-troubled country."

In other words, staying out of the way and hunkered down didn't help any.

But what really gets me is that not only are the the so-called "resistance fighters" are kidnapping the citizens of countries that opposed US intervention in Iraq, but that those civilians are there to help rebuild the country!

In addition to the Chinese and Japanese hostages,
" Seven South Korean church pastors were taken captive last week but freed later the same day. Three Pakistanis, two Turks, an Indian, a Nepali and a Filipino were also kidnapped but detained only briefly before being released.

A Palestinian and a Canadian of Syrian origin are believed still held.

As missionaries, journalists, human rights activists or contract workers, most of those taken captive appear to have had little connection with the military, perhaps making them easy targets." (emphasis added)

Yes, sir, a sure-fire plan to gain independance and rebuild Iraq.

Posted by Casey at 03:56 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

### The Fog of War

While googling for extra sources for this post, I found out that, while Clausewitz is credited with the phrase "fog of war," he never used that term in On War.

Apparently the closest he came was mentioning "fog and friction." defined as "The diverse difficulties and impediments to the effective use of military force."

Whether Clausewitz actually used the phrase or not, the uncertainty of war was a consistent theme in his work: "In war, everything is very simple. But even the simplest things are very difficult."

Author/analyst Jim Dunnigan made an intereresting comment in his book From Shield to Storm (with Austin Bay) that during Desert Storm "for the first time, people all over the world could experience the pre-combat jitters" that every soldier does. But it isn't just jitters; the phrase "fog of war" delineates, in terse form, the terrible uncertainty implicit during any combat.

The recent action in Iraq has already been compared to Tet '68, but to my knowledge very few have compared Tet to an equally famous battle: the Ardennes offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge.

During that combat, thirty American divisions faced thirty German. Over a million men fought a month-long battle in one of the single greatest battles of the Second World War. Over 19,000 Americans died in that battle.

The parallels to Tet are instructive: both occured near the end of a war; both times the Allies were publicly confident of victory; both offensives were a surprise in terms of strength, center of gravity (schwerpunkt), and time of the attack. The main difference is that Tet was a (relatively) easier victory. It took the Allies a month to fight their way back to their original line. In Vietnam it took less than two weeks, with certain notable exceptions such as Hue.

But (with the exception of works such as Band of Brothers) few mainstream works have focused on just how surprised the Allies were, and how chaotic the situation became.

Alas, too few understand that warfare is, by its very nature, chaotic.

On December 16, 1944, Germany began what was originally termed a "counteroffensive," or spoiling attack, on American positions in the Schnee Eifel. Over 600,000 men swarmed against a front that had been deliberately thinned by SHAEF in order to concentrate on an anticipated attack to the northeast.

Several American divisions were severely damaged, and two were effectively destroyed. Tens of hundreds of American soldiers streamed back from the front in retreat. Not all were so discouraged. One rearward-advancing sergeant, seeing advancing tanks, jumped up on one and yelled "I joined the Army to fight, not retreat!" He had a lot of company in 1944.

There were quite a few rumors speeding about: German assassins targeting Eisenhower; enemy units crossing the Liege, and approaching Antwerp; German units in American uniforms, speaking English to introduce confusion. Eisenhower had to submit to a bodyguard in Paris...

Despite all this; despite the chaos, confusion, retreat and apparent defeat, the Allies went on to decimate German forces in the West. In fact, most observers agree that the Ardennes offensive shortened the war by eliminating a significant part of German offensive capability.

But you wouldn't have known that by reading the day by day wire reports during the second half of December, 1944. By all indications the Allies were facing an unmitigated disaster.

This is the central problem of any war: how to separate rumor from reality, fear from fact, and truth from trepidation. This is, in all actuality, the ultimate test of any leader; the ability to see clearly through the fog of war.

The reason I bring all this up, including the earlier reference to From Shield to Storm, is that it is now possible for citizens of a country to watch a war in near real-time.

While America experienced a foreshadowing of this during Vietnam, it was not until the Gulf War that voters could experience 24/7 coverage of war. We can all dredge up memories of the anxiety, fear, and (eventual) excitement that that war invoked.

Today that uncertainty has been raised to a considerable power. All we need to do is think back a year to the invasion of Iraq.

The pre-war predictions were all over the map: thousands of US dead; tens of thousands of Iraq dead; the "Arab Street" would wreak a terrible vengeance on America; US citizens worried about germ or chemical attacks, while people stocked up on duct tape, plastic covers for windows, and bottled water; Saddam Hussein would inflict tremendous coalition casualties, either with WMDs, or with street fighting in Baghdad, to reproduce "another Stalingrad." Or, alternatively, it would be a "cakewalk."

Despite all the predictions, the actual war managed to surprise. At first, coalition forces swept past all opposition in a "wave of steel," until the infamous pause that certainly didn't refresh! After that, the theme swung from "blitzkrieg" to "quagmire" in just a couple of days.

But still, after all that, three United States divisions managed to conquer an entire country within a few weeks. Even Guerdian would have been impressed.

The moral of the story? We could trot out some of the more hoary old chestnuts, such as "don't count your chickens before they're hatched," or (a favorite of Churchill's) "trees to not grow up to the sky," but that would miss the point.

I have to say the Jerry Pournelle said it best with "The trick is, the thing is: not to lose your head."

War is, by its very nature, a chaotic undertaking. And the recent study of Robert MacNamara (ironically titled "The Fog of War") shows the pitfalls of trying to apply deterministic planning to the Art of War.

What does this mean today? Simple. We have seen, during the past week in Iraq, public statements of absolute confidence as well as near-absolute despair. The latter is best exemplified by by the Not-Honorable Senator Byrd's recent "cut and run" speech.

The trick is, as the man said, "not to lose your head."

We need to win the war, before we start squabbling about winning the peace.

Posted by Casey at 02:53 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

## April 05, 2004

### On a lighter note

Last night we had the Nickelodeon's 17th annual Kids' Choice Awards.

Amanda Bynes had a repeat with her 2nd consecutive "favorite movie actress" win, as did SpongeBob SquarePants for "favorite cartoon and video game."

OutKast picked up a double win with "favorite music group," as well as "favorite song." (Hey Ya!)

Ellen DeGeneres won "favorite animated voice" (justly so, I think!) with her protrayal of Dori in Finding Nemo.

But my favorite was the award given to Hugh Jackman (X-Men, X2, Swordfish, Kate & Leopold, Van Helsing).

Jackman won "finest celebrity burper."

In his acceptance speech, Jackman said "Finally, something my family can be proud of."

My gosh, don't you just love The Arts!?

Posted by Casey at 03:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

## April 04, 2004

### The Sins of Kos

Dean Esmay has recently weighed in on Kos' comments about the murder of four civilians in Fallujah last week.

Dean, the kind soul that he is, remarks that "Zuniga's human," that he's said things he (Zuniga) now regrets, and observes (reasonably) that we've all done that before. Lord knows I have! :)

The problem is Kos hasn't really shown any remorse for his original comments. In fact, not only did he replace the original post with a milder one (the above link), this later post contains more than a little arrogant swagger.

For some reason I feel that Kos is not truly penitent. But that's just me.

And that's not why I'm posting about the situation now. To my mind nearly every blog that's posted about this (that I've read, anyway) has missed the point. The men that died in Fallujah were former members of the United States armed forces. They, too, served their fellow citizens. They, too, faced sacrifice, pain, hardship, and the very real chance of death in the service of their country.

Kos has said "As a former soldier, I have a natural kinship with our men and women in uniform. "

If so, he is one of the most miserably ignorant soldiers I've encountered.

One of the standard threads in the discussion about the Iraq War has been the ability of the United States to maintain force levels. More than one well-informed commentator has remarked that we are stretched thin, in many respects. While it is true that the US force structure faces challenges, those challenges are not across the board. In fact, in many ways there are too many people volunteering, or re-upping.

The shortages are fairly specific; military police, for example. The Army is facing that challenge by disbanding superfluous artillery groups and retraining the men as MPs. Other shortages include the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Civil Affairs battalions. From StrategyPage.com (February 9 entry):
"These units are actually company sized (about 140 troops, half of them officers) and were originally designed for one of them to support one division in combat. Only one of these battalions is active duty, the rest are reserve units. Most of the officers in the reserve battalions are government officials, business executives and professionals (doctors, lawyers and even a few clergy.). That experience, combined with the specialized training they get from the army, enables them to take care of displaced, hostile or leaderless civilian populations on the battlefield. This worked quite well in 1991, when reserve civil affairs officers quickly organized the civil administration in Kuwait right after the war. The civil affairs battalion was able to turn things over, in such good shape, to the returning Kuwaiti officials, that the Kuwaitis asked that they stick around for a few extra months. "

Also, from an earlier post (scroll down to the December 24 entry from the above link):
"The combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are in need of skilled civilian reinforcements. The Department of Defense is hiring hundreds of lawyers, engineers, interpreters, intelligence specialists and managers to support the operations in Afghanistan and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. The jobs pay from $35,000-125,000 a year, plus travel and living expenses. Military veterans are preferred, as some of the jobs require travel into dangerous parts of both countries. The people being hired advice the new Iraqi and Afghan government on how best to handle many reconstruction tasks, as well as giving the Department of Defense people on the spot who can accurately report about what is actually happening, or not happening."

What isn't mentioned in the above is the fact that the US faces (perfectly normal) attrition in their Special Operations Forces (SOF) structure as men reach retirement after twenty years.. The Army and the Navy face the same challenges -retaining Green Berets and SEALS- that the Air Force does with pilots, or all branches do with professionals such as lawyers and doctors. These men can obtain a civilian salary that is five or (in some cases) ten times times what they might make in the armed forces. After twenty years, that's hard to turn down.

So all the branches pay extra for doctors, lawyers, pilots, and other highly-qualified specialists, or do without.

In the case of the SOCOM specialists (especially in that case) the United States will always face a shortage. There are only so many superior soldiers/sailors/airmen to go around. One of the other challenges America faces is finding high-powered leaders to help shape the development in civil affairs in Iraq.

One of the ways that the US addresses this is by hiring retired SOCOM members as civilians in Iraq, which brings me back to Kos' comments.

I reiterate:
"As a former soldier, I have a natural kinship with our men and women in uniform." (emphasis added)

What Kos (painfully, obviously) misses is the basic fact that the "mercenaries" that he so despises are men who served twenty years, or more, in the US armed forces

That, in fact, the men he condemns as "mercenaries" are the same men he (says) he has a "natural kinship" with.

I suspect that, somehow, he'll fail to perceive the distinction.

As a parting aside: strictly speaking, a true (professional) mercenary is one who will honorably serve a contract, then offer himself to the highest bidder afterwards. In other words, a true mercenary would serve a contract for the Iraq Authority, and then (after finishing an earlier contract) serve equally well under the ageis of the Baathists. A good example would be the condotierres in 14th century Italy, one of whom was John Hawkwood.

My challenge is this: find even a half-dozen (former SOCOM) "mercenaries" who would do so.

I didn't think so...

UPDATE: as of 04:30 Eastern Time, Kos' site is unavailable. I caught a message about changing servers earlier. With luck I'll be able to update the links to the Kos posts.

Ok, Sunday afternoon and the links work again now! I assume the server switch is accomplished.

Posted by Casey at 01:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

## April 01, 2004

### Whatta revoltin' development!

I've been irked, for a while, about how the blogroll javascript works, and how one is charged money if want to divide your blog links in special ways.

Now, today, I can't even get to blogrolling.com! Yurk.

Ok, back to manual! I can cut'n'paste with the best of them.

However, if someone notices I'm missing a link that used to be up, please let me know.

Posted by Casey at 03:37 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack