Yokohama, Japan (April 25, 2006) - Representative of the Australian Defense Force, Major General David Morrison salutes a cross after laying a wreath, in the Hodogaya British Commonwealth War Cemetery, in honor of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) soldiers who have died in war. ANZAC Day is celebrated in remembrance of the first ANZAC operation at Gallipoli, Turkey on April 25, 1915. www.navy.mil

Petty Officer 2nd Class Patrick S. Livesay provides security for the Easter sunrise service at Al Asad, Iraq, April 16. Rear Adm. Robert F. Burt delivered his Easter message to deployed soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and civilians who joined him for the service. Livesay is a religious programs specialist with Combat Logistic Battalion 7. Burt is the U.S. Navy Deputy Chief of Chaplains and the Chaplain of the Marine Corps. www.usmc.mil

Damage Controlman 3rd Class Keith Hauffen inspects the Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) system aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). Stennis is currently underway conducting its five-year Inspection and Survey (INSURV) inspection off the coast of Southern California. www.navy.mil

Rumsfeld's Army

As you very well may know, I support the Secretary of War in his efforts at recalibrating the American military for the 21'st century in spite of the negative karma swirling around him in the media regarding his tenure. Donald Rumsfeld has his work cut out for him but I have full faith and confidence in his abilities and his judgment in erecting a military that is both flexible and powerful enough in carrying out the missions as ordered by the President of the United States in opposition to the War Of Terror being imposed upon us by state-sponsored Islamic terrorism.

I believe a lot of the complaints and bitching about Rumsfeld by ex-army/marine generals is rather disingenuous on their part since they themselves exposed their "issues" in the narcissistic media rather than in the chain of command where such grieviences are typically handled or at least they didn't keep it within military circles but chose, not coincentally, to expose themselves after they retired. Considering this is an election year, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. A rather informative article regarding the Secretary of Defense in TCS Daily highlights with great clarity the objectives and hurdles Secretary Rumsfeld faces as we conduct the War On Terror.

From TCS Daily:

War, the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously observed, is the continuation of politics by other means. He could have just as easily said military planning, for our politics determine how we will use the military instrument and just how sharp -- or blunt -- that instrument must be.

Donald Rumsfeld returned to the post of Defense Secretary in 2000 with a clear view of both the politics and the instrument. He promised to transform the military from the plodding, manpower intensive force of the Cold War into a leaner, networked military which would employ superior firepower and maneuver to compensate for fewer soldiers and lighter ground vehicles. This military, with its emphasis on remotely piloted aircraft and high altitude, precision strike capability, could produce quicker victories against a broader array of threats -- and with fewer casualties. It would have fewer massive bases overseas and more "forward operating sites" -- bare-bones facilities where supplies, troops and equipment could be "surged" in the event of conflict.

I believe the author to be correct in that politics shapes both the objective as well as the size of the military and thus the generals are subservient to the vicissitudes permeating Washington DC at any given moment. Politics and policies therefore determine the demeanor and size of the military and not the otherway around even during time of war.

The article continues:

This vision of "military transformation" was not uniquely Rumsfeld's. Many scholars and service-members had been promoting the "revolution in military affairs" before he arrived at the Pentagon. But Rumsfeld seized on it with a single minded determination. The theory of transformation had the usual retinue of critics and cheerleaders, but the press was largely interested in which weapons system were on the chopping block (and by extension, which pork-addled members of Congress were positioning themselves between the knife) - not to mention how the Army was peeved at Rumsfeld's management style. Rarely did the press focus on the core question of just what political ends this Rumsfeldian military was being built to accomplish. The transformation debates took place in what was, before the Iraq war, a political vacuum.

Rumsfeld knew what kind of military he was building and he knew what that military was supposed to do. In a January 2002 speech, he listed six criteria:

"First, to protect the U.S. homeland and our bases overseas. Second, to project and sustain power in distant theaters. Third, to deny our enemies sanctuary, making sure they know that no corner of the world is remote enough, no mountain high enough, no cave or bunker deep enough, no SUV fast enough to protect them from our reach. Fourth, to protect our information networks from attack. Fifth, to use information technology to link up different kinds of U.S. forces so that they can in fact fight jointly. And sixth, to maintain unhindered access to space and protect our space capabilities from enemy attack."

I know for most people the issue of whether we mainatin a pre-9/11 army or a post-9/11 army is inconsequential but I assure you this topic is terribly important and will shape American Foreign Policy to come for many years if not decades. The Cold War was fought defensively as these policies were at first conceived by Democrat administrations in the Roosevelt/Truman era and thus had far ranging effects on American Foreign Policy from 1945 - 1989.

This administration has set a new standard in motion that is offensive in nature and relies primarily on more lighter/mobile forces that are compliemented by Air Force and Naval assets mulitplying their destructive abilities on the ground in support of these lighter forces. We have not yet used the entire spectrum of our military in the War On Terror, namely the use of nuclear munitions. A lot of the angst expressed by Democrats thus are reflective of their appetite for stale and old cold war policies that are no longer operational in a post-9/11 world. With the destruction of the World Trade Center those days are no longer with us.

Basically, the article states that Rumsfeld adhered to this new doctrine in spite of the need towards nation-building such as in Iraq which supposidely requires massive occupational troops to carry the nation into being a "productive" member in the world of civilized nations. I do disagree with the author that this can't be achieved without more troops than we currently have. The Iraqi's, if they truly want freedom, will do just fine with our "token" force in Iraq. The problems besetting this nation have nothing to do with Rumsfeld's doctrine or the number of American troops as it does with Syrian and Iranian interference in Mesopotamia. The Arab and Persian armies are paper-tigers and it will not take much to overthrow them as one might think. Thus, until we invade Syria and Iran, the IED's, the Baathists, and the general anarchy will continue to prevail in the Sunni Triangle.

The article goes on:

Yet despite calls from generals -- armchair or otherwise -- to increase the size of the Army, Rumsfeld has refused.

It is in Iraq where the rubber of Rumsfeld's doctrine is meeting the road of American purpose. President Bush has embraced (in Mead's terminology) the Wilsonian mission of democracy promotion, yet supports a Defense Secretary who continues to build an army designed to do anything but. It is not a sustainable contradiction. Either the U.S. backs off nation building or adapts transformation to accommodate more stabilization and reconstruction missions (read: a significant increase in reserve forces available for post-conflict duty). In short, the U.S. has to decide what kind of foreign policy it wants before it builds its military.

I believe the Bush Administration already has decided this foreign policy and its called the Long War. It may be institutionally impossible to change the Middle East in its current Islamic format, however, we must first defeat the enemy before any "civilization-building" can begin and I must say we have just begun to fight.

Finally the article finishes:

The Wall Street Journal's Greg Jaffe noted in 2003 that: "Victory in Iraq promises to offer a big boost to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's mission to transform how the U.S. military fights, what it buys and where it goes."

In an odd twist, so could failure. It's an open question whether the public's increasing unease about the Iraq mission will translate into a rebuke of Rumsfeld's policies or an endorsement. Looking into the tumult in Baghdad, the public might conclude, not that Rumsfeld was wrong to under-man the occupation, but that he was right to reject such a mission for the U.S. in the first place.

Only time, and future defense secretaries, will tell.

I say, "Carry on, Mr. Secretary! Carry on!".

Mare Nostrum

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) transits the Atlantic Ocean. Eisenhower and embarked Carrier Air Wing Seven (CVW-7) are participating in Composite Training Unit Exercise (COMPTUEX). www.navy.mil

Jolly Roger

What to do about Iran. Sanctions? Diplomacy? War? These are the things which we ponder as the Iranian leadership plunges the country towards a conflict with the United States. I'm going to go out on a limb and make some predictions. As you may very well know, predicting free-will is very difficult thing to do and even the best intelligence agencies around the world have a pickle of a time trying to figure out what will come next. The best one can do is to sift through hundreds of intelligence intercepts and identify trends that may be forming to determine a certain course of action. I am a single person who simply is interested in foreign policy. Nothing more. Like an oracle, I will attempt to decipher the meaning of my inner gut feelings as to the future in Persia.

Here are my predictions regarding Iran:

1) There will be war.

2) The President of the United States will sound the Alpha Signal commencing military operations with a surprise tactical nuclear strike on Natanz and Isfahan, knocking out Iran's uranium enriching capabilities for the long term and sending a signal to the world that America has the capability and desire to blitz our enemies demonstrating that the doctrine of preemption is alive and well.

3) Military operations conducted by the United States will more resemble the operation in Afghanistan than Iraq by relying primarily on special operators backed by US Air Force tactical bombers and strategic assets such as B-1's, B-2's and B-52's. Perhaps an amphibious assault along Iran's southern shores by a USMC MEF or MEB and/or the use of airborne troops for quickly seizing WMD assets held by Iran. Bushehr will be seized by American Marine forces.

4) Iranians, who detest the regime, will rise up to embrace their American "visitors" and overthrow their government in Tehran. Additional American conventional forces stationed in either Iraq or Afghanistan will force their way to the capital to assist in its liberation.

5) The US Air Force will completely dominate the skies over Iran. The use of drones will play a more significant part than ever before more in reconnaissance but also for tactical strikes as well as they can be equipped with "hellfire" missiles. Lovely.

6) Iran will strike back by mining the straight of Hormuz and with cruise-missile attacks on any number of ships transiting this region. They will also agitate for revolt in Southern Iraq by various armed militia to counter and tie-down American and coalition forces in Iraq. The US Navy may suffer the loss of destroyers/frigates by suicide boats or more conventional missiles.

7) Gas prices in the United States will rise to $5.00 a gallon.

8) Israel will be attacked by terrorist elements from Hezbollah esconced in Lebanon.

9) The Dome of the Rock will be destroyed by an errant Shehab V-2 type missile in a last ditch effort by Iran to stir up the Islamic world against Israel.

10) Terrorist sleeper cells will be activated in the United States as a strategic/political attack against targets such as the Pentagon and other assets not yet hit that may impart some morale boost for Iran.

There may be other American "super" weapons unknown to the public that may be used for the first time in Iran not covered in the above scenarios.

P.S. I could be completely wrong.

U.S. Navy High-Speed Vessel (HSV 2) Swift arrives for a routine port visit. Swift, currently manned by its Blue Crew, is assigned as the command ship for Commander Mine Warfare Command (COMINEWARCOM) located in Ingleside, Texas. www.navy.mil

Sailors conduct patrol and troop leading operations during the Navy's Individual Augmentee Combat Training at Fort Jackson S.C. The fast paced, two week program is instructed by Army drill sergeants who provide Sailors basic combat skills such as, weapons qualifications, basic first aid, land navigation, hand to hand combat, urban operations, and cultural awareness training. These Sailors are preparing for a deployment as individual augmentees, mostly to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility (AOR). www.navy.mil

Mexico or Bust!

With the sudden emergence of a foreign people marching in the streets of Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas and Washington DC among others, clamoring for "citizenship" and all that it entails, a new turn has been made in the road away from utopian abstract internationalism towards pragmatic endearing and enduring nationalism. Are these days the "best of times" or the "worst of times", one cannot say as yet, but certainly the most "interesting of times".

Many institutions in America are demanding amnesty for illegal Mexican aliens or at least something akin to such an agreement. The Presidency, the Senate, political parties including Republican, Democrat and Liberterian, the media in general and finally the Catholic Church all have come out in support of illegal aliens to the detriment of the law itself. All these institutions have their reasons and rationales for embracing illegal alien amnesty, however, the bottom line is the American citizenry have been completely ignored and in fact have been denied their due process and say in this matter.

This "debate" about so called illegal immigration is not about "immigration" whatsoever. It's really about the law. Does someone, be they citizen or not, have the right to violate the law? And if so, does this person receive damnation or justification for violating said name law? Do the rulers who have been elected by law-abiding citizens to enforce the law have the right to arbitrarily ignore their oath of office and make a mockery of the Consitution that they allegedly have sworn to protect by embracing the lawless? Has a deal with the devil been made unbenownest to us who go to work daily supporting their local, state and federal government that allows squatters and usurpers more say over those who quietly and diligently uphold their civic duty as lawful citizens?

The ramifications of amnesty for the lawless will strike down this nation as a great power like no other event in its history. The putrefaction of lawlessness has seeped into every crack and oriface of American society and blackens the concept of the "good of society" since clearly it is not the greater society that benefits from this "immigration" debate. Man is inherently corrupt and the United States Consitution was designed with that in mind to keep a check on power-mad men and now women from destroying conservative, peaceful, law and order. Life, liberty and property can only exist if the law is obeyed. Disobediance to the law threatens this order and that is why criminals who violate this order must receive their due reward: death. And yet, we see how the Left has completely castrated government by nearly abolishing the death penalty and made prison time more of a purgatory than a final resting place. This "soft on crime" mentality as espoused by the Left has finally made its face known to the public on an international scale and has matasticized into the cancer of "illegal immigration".

How will the electorate respond? Is their no institution that will speak for us? Are we citizens to sit idly by and WATCH our country sink beneath the abyss of lawlessness without taking action? What action do we take? Is it the most effective response needed in these "interesting times"? My friends, there is one institution that has always been the shieldmaiden of America: the United States Military. Through her our country fought to victory and overcame the punishing hand of Great Britain. Through her we overcame the narcissism of civil war that engulfed our land. Through her, we have beat back the forces of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. And through her and the menace she had shown to thuggish communist governments from Moscow to Hanoi in the efficacy and virtue of her glorious arms we overcame even the medieval marxist conspiracy that theatened the entire world. And yet, she could not live by bread alone, but by the invigorating and life-giving doctrines of Christianity.

These are perilous times and dangers mount from without and from within. You, my Christian friend, will turn the tide. Or the tide will take you out to sea. You decide.

An F-15E Strike Eagle flies over a forward-deployed location in Southwest Asia. Aircraft like this are capable of monitoring battlespace with their targeting pods. This concept is known as non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
www.af.mil

Code 66

George Lucas' space opera "Revenge of the Sith" explores the ramification of democracies voting-in dictatorships among other sub-plots within his last movie and ultimately has the peaceful and benign senator from Naboo becoming the evil and dark Emporer of the now infamous "Empire". As the Emporer arrests power from the Jedi Council he unveils his ultimate conspiracy by turning the clone troops of the Republic against the Jedi and all free peoples by activating "Code 66", corny I know, but illustrates Georges' worldview that the military in "real" life certainly can't be trusted and all it takes is "one" person to mold it into a force for evil. As the Left truly believes, our troops are clearly "mindless robots or clones" who follow any orders without due regard to our modus vivendi or constitution and are a threat to our "republic".

Are Georges' beliefs well founded? Does history show that countries that are typically fond of freedom can give it all away for "security" and power? Well, the answer is yes, they can and did. Ironically, it has always been the Left however, that actually formed the conspiracies to overthrow the legitimate conservative and consenual governments in Europe, Asia and Latin/South America. I know George Lucas thinks that conservatives and especially Republicans are the "true" danger to freedom everywhere but frankly its quite the opposite as demonstrated by the facts and history itself.

The Left's embrace of socialism as their modus vivendi is best illustrated by the mutli-headed Hydra. The claim to fame for this beast was if you lopped off one of its heads it would grow two more in its place. In this case, socialism is the body of the Hydra while the different sects of socialism are its heads. The many heads of this socialist beast has been represented throughout the 20th century in the form of Fascism, National Socialism and Communism. We have seen the more western benign heads rise up in France and Britain and certainly in America but are no less insidious as its more violent eastern cousins.

The major characteristics of socialism is its adherence to a redistribution of income and a planned economy. It also has a penchant to murderous violence both domestically and foreign. Its contribution to history is its love of mob-ocracy. If it doesn't get what it wants then they "march" onto the streets as a mindless mob violating the civil order that is the right of all free peoples throughout the world. You will note the sad irony however, that once "they" achieve power then ALL forms of "protest" are completely and violently put down. Free-will is anathema to socialists of every stripe and thus to be extinguished by excessive legislation micro-managing every detail of your life and ultimately centralizing power in one federal head. Another characteristic of socialism is that the political party becomes THE STATE thus ensuring "loyalty" to the state by party apparatchiks. Finally, Christianity is an evil to be either violently suppressed or watered-down by politically correct doctrines of the Left thereby emasculating Jesus Christ from society at large thus giving rise and power to pagan cults and/or atheism.

In Italy in the early 1920's, it was Mussolini and the Fascists using the threat of mob violence of his "Black Shirts" to sow anarchy and civil war that ultimately prompted the traditional conservative establishment as represented by the Italian monarchy of King Emmanuel to "give" the government over to the Fascists. In turn, the Fascist Party would become the Fascist Government of Il Duce.

From Wikipedia:

At various times after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the interior, of foreign affairs, of the colonies, of the corporations, of the army and the other armed services, and of public works. Sometimes he held as many as seven departments simultaneously, as well as the premiership. He was also head of the all-powerful Fascist party (formed in 1921) and the armed local Fascist militia, the MVSN, or Blackshirts", that terrorized incipient resistances in the cities and provinces. He would later form an institutionalised militia that carried official state support, the OVRA. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival. But it was at the price of creating a regime that was overcentralized, inefficient, and corrupt.

Most of his time was spent on propaganda, whether at home or abroad, and here his training as a journalist was invaluable. Press, radio, education, films — all were carefully supervised to manufacture the illusion that fascism was the doctrine of the 20th century, replacing liberalism and democracy.

Under the dictatorship, the effectiveness of the parlimentary system was virtually abolished though its forms were publicly preserved. The law codes were rewritten. All teachers in schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the Fascist regime. Newspaper editors were all personally chosen by Mussolini himself, and no one could practice journalism who did not possess a certificate of approval from the Fascist party. These certificates were issued in secret, so the public had no idea of this ever occurring, thus skillfully creating the illusion of a "free press".

Mussolini played up to his financial backers at first by transferring a number of industries from public to private ownership. But by the 1930s he had begun moving back to the opposite extreme of rigid governmental control of industry.

Germany in the early 1930's, Hitler and his National Socialists come to power by both the franchise and mob-ocracy. Once again, the "Brown Shirts", a copy of the Fascists Black Shirts in Italy, were used exclusively to bully and intimidate both the people in general and the ministers in government. Their recourse to violence in the street was the leverage Hitler used to convince traditional conservative consensual government in the form of the old Hindenburg to acquiese to a coalition of political parties with the NAZI's as the largest block within this group and allow them to rule Germany. The Party would become the State. Hindenburg felt it was necessary to give them power, the NAZI's only achieved a plurality of votes not a majority, in order to save the country from almost certain civil war between the thuggish Brown Shirts and the subversive communists.

from wikipedia:

The new government installed a dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession. On February 27,1933 the Reichstag was set on fire, and this was followed immediately by the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeous corpus and civil liberties.

A further step that turned Germany into a dictatorship virtually overnight was the Enabling Act passed in March 1933 under pressure. The act gave the government (and thus effectively Adolf Hitler) legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution. With these powers, Hitler removed the remaining opposition and turned the Weimar Republic into the "Third Reich".

Further consolidation of power was achieved on January 30th, 1934, with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs (Act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferring sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration.

The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" members of their own population, such as the T-4 Euthenasia Program that killed tens of thousands of disabled and sick Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" The techniques of mass killing developed in these efforts would later be used in the holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to alcholism.

Recent research has also emphasized the role of the extensive Nazi welfare programmes that supposedly helped maintain public support for the regime until late in the war. The German community was nationalized and labor and entertainment - from festivals, to vacation trips and traveling cinemas - were all made a part of the "Strength through Joy" program. Also crucial to the building of loyalty and comradeship was the implementation of the National Labor Service and the Hitler Youth Organization, with the former being compulsory and the latter consisting of nearly six million boys and girls. In addition to a number of architectural projects that were undertaken, the construction of the Autobahn made it the first National Motor Highway system in the world. It should be noted that between 1933 and 1936, Germany outpaced the United States in construction, automobile production, unemployment and employment.

Russia in 1917, after suffering miserable losses on their Western Front against Germany and Austria/Hungary during WWI, gave rise to the greatest of socialist thugs in the now infamous Bolshevik Revolution. Tsar Nicholas having abdicated his throne just some 6 months prior, was under the protection of a provisional left-wing socialist government, when he was captured by the extremely violent Bolshevics, met a murderous fate at the hands of the radical communist party in an effort to rid Russia of Czarist rule forever. There was a time when "democracy" and the "rule of law" could have blossomed in Russia after the Czar surrendered his power and authority, however, with subversive and brutal left-wing thugs roaming unchecked first in the cities then in the countryside came to symbolize all that the Left has stood for since 1917. Once seizing power for itself, THE Communist Party would become THE State:

From wikipedia:

Before the revolution of February, 1917, main Bolsheviks (Zinoviev, Trotsky, Lenin) lived and worked in Western Europe, receiving financial support from the European social democrats.

While the Mensheviks and other moderate socialists believed that an industrially backwards country such as Russia could not hope to achieve socialism and that the task of the revolution was therefore to complete the country's transformation to liberal capitalism, the Bolsheviks believed that Russia could be the spark that would lead Europe to a socialist transformation of society and did not attempt to moderate their program.

The Central Committee of the Bolsheviks spent September and October of 1917 debating whether they should use parliamentary methods or whether they should seize power by force. With Lenin in hiding in Finland, the parliamentary line -- advocated by Kamenev, Zinoviev and Rykov against Trotsky -- at first prevailed and the Bolsheviks participates in the quasiparliamentary bodies convened by the Provisional Government, the Democratic Conference and the smaller, more permanent Pre-Parliament. Lenin sent numerous letters to the Central Committee and Petrograd party activists urging them to abandon the parliamentary path and overthrow the Provisional Government by means of an insurrection.

The rest is history as most of you should well know. What followed after the communist seizure of power is typically ignored by most Leftists as it indeed is a shame upon them that will never be forgotten in history. Consolidating their hold in Moscow, the communists would come to murder tens of millions of their fellow citizens as they attempted to "manage" the people.

The Left has always been subversive in nature and really its they that George Lucas should be in fear of, not George Bush and those Republicans. What I find humorous is that most conservatives love the Star Wars saga and do not find its message as "leftwing" per se. The "Empire" of Star Wars was always considered to represent the Communist Empire as espoused by President Ronald Reagan, a former actor, which no doubt must have bugged old Lucas to no end. The irony of movie history?

A Marine from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) awaits the word to launch his Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) from the well deck of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) for a landing rehearsal exercise. Commander, Task Force Seven Six (CTF-76) ships, units and embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) elements are currently participating in Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration (RSIO) and Foal Eagle (FE) 2006. www.navy.mil

An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the Fighting Vigilantes of Strike Fighter Squadron One Five One (VFA-151) launches from the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) during a snowstorm. Lincoln and Carrier Air Wing Two (CVW-2) are currently underway in the Western Pacific conducting a scheduled deployment. www.navy.mil