Underground In Las Vegas

There are people living in the flood tunnel system under Las Vegas.

Further into the maze are Amy and Junior who married in the Shalimar Chapel – one of Vegas’s most popular venues - before returning to the tunnels for their honeymoon.

They lost their home when they became addicted to drugs after the death of their son Brady at four months old.

‘I heard Las Vegas was a good place for jobs,’ Amy said. ‘But it was tough and we started living under the staircase outside the MGM casino.

‘Then we met a guy who lived in the tunnels. We’ve been down here ever since.’

Matthew O’Brien, a reporter who stumbled across the tunnel people when he was researching a murder case, has set up The Shine A Light foundation to help.

‘These are normal people of all ages who’ve lost their way, generally after a traumatic event,’ he said.

‘Many are war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress.

It is really shameful the way we treat people with personal problems in the US. If they take drugs for relief we hound them into jail if we can find them. But that is not the only problem.

PTSD treatment for returned soldiers is haphazard at best.

In his last months alive, Senior Airman Anthony Mena rarely left home without a backpack filled with medications.

He returned from his second deployment to Iraq complaining of back pain, insomnia, anxiety and nightmares. Doctors diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and prescribed powerful cocktails of psychiatric drugs and narcotics.

Yet his pain only deepened, as did his depression. “I have almost given up hope,” he told a doctor in 2008, medical records show. “I should have died in Iraq.”

Airman Mena died instead in his Albuquerque apartment, on July 21, 2009, five months after leaving the Air Force on a medical discharge. A toxicologist found eight prescription medications in his blood, including three antidepressants, a sedative, a sleeping pill and two potent painkillers.

Yet his death was no suicide, the medical examiner concluded. What killed Airman Mena was not an overdose of any one drug, but the interaction of many. He was 23.

It breaks my heart to see this. But that is not the only such story.

...the military came under criticism a decade ago for not prescribing enough medications, particularly for pain. In its willingness to prescribe more readily, the Pentagon was trying to meet standards similar to civilian medicine, General Chiarelli said.

But the response of modern psychiatry to modern warfare has not always been perfect. Psychiatrists still do not have good medications for the social withdrawal, nightmares and irritability that often accompany post-traumatic stress, so they mix and match drugs, trying to relieve symptoms.

“These decisions about medication are difficult enough in civilian psychiatry, but unfortunately in this very-high-stress population, there is almost no data to guide you,” said Dr. Ranga R. Krishnan, a psychiatrist at Duke University. “The psychiatrist is trying everything and to some extent is flying blind."

They are all flying blind - civilian and military doctors alike.

Worse - our government actively hampers the use of one of the safest drugs known to man for relief of PTSD symptoms. I have written about it at length. Here are some of the articles:

PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System

The Soldiers Disease

Is Addiction Real?

Police and PTSD

PTSD Pot Alcohol & Substance Abuse

PTSD is not just a problem for combat vets: Heroin.

And where opiate use is necessary marijuana can reduce the required dose.

Medical marijuana can help pain patients in many ways. Using cannabis as an adjunct medicine can help opiate pain meds work better. Medical marijuana can successfully treat pain and help lower the overall dose of narcotics, something that is healthy for the patient.

It would be very useful if military doctors could use marijuana to reduce the required opiate dose. Unfortunately military doctors are not allowed to have anything to do with medical marijuana. There are Federal Laws against pot dontcha know.

I would love it if the Government wised up about all this. But first the people are going to have to demand it. We are not quite there yet. And that is very sad.

Here are a few books on the subject:

Marijuana Medical Handbook: Practical Guide to Therapeutic Uses of Marijuana

Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible

Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence

Medical Marijuana 101: Everything They Told You Is Wrong

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Hanging Out With Marines

There is a discussion of gun control and the Nazis going on at the Volokh conspiracy. I found a comment there I took exception to:

I’m for 2nd amendment rights but the silly Nazi idiocy in this post is offensive. It reeks of the miltary hatered found in the IBD blog about a possible miltary coup about a year ago. Irrational hatred born of apparently complete ignorance.

Well, let me say this about that:

I dunno. I’m ex-military (admittedly a Navy pussy — but we hang out with Marines) and a Jew. And I think about these things. Are they serious worries? Not yet. Hopefully not ever.

But just in case I hang out from time to time at the Oath Keepers site.

BTW - Happy Birthday Marines. When John Paul Jones was fighting the British you made a difference. Not exactly American Marines. But since they were under American command we'll take 'em.

Semper Fi

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Project Valor IT

You can still donate to help wounded military men and women at: Project Valour-IT

Project Valour-IT helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. Items supplied include:

# Voice-controlled Laptops - Operated by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, they allow the wounded to maintain connections with the rest of the world during recovery.
# Wii Video Game Systems - Whole-body game systems increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists in therapy sessions (donated only to medical facilities).
# Personal GPS - Handheld GPS devices build self-confidence and independence by compensating for short-term memory loss and organizational challenges related to severe TBI and severe PTSD.

Warrior Song www site

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Drone Control

And that brings up an interesting bit of information. Gaming improves thinking.

Ongoing research conducted by the Office of Naval Research suggests "that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their fundamental abilities to reason and solve problems in novel contexts." This as posted at the United States Department of of Defense by Bob Freeman. Freeman quotes Ray Perez, program officer at the ONR's warfighter performance department who gave the following statements during a January 20 interview on Pentagon Web Radio's webcast, "Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military." For those who have always been convinced that gaming isn't a 100% negative influence - as the mainstream media continually wants everyone to believe - these findings are for you. Perez says they have discovered that frequent game players "perform 10 to 20 percent higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability than normal people that are non-game players." Perez, who holds a doctorate in educational psychology, is seeking new training techniques that will allow our soldiers "to improve performance on the battlefield." This new war on terror has forced the military to adapt to "deadly adversaries who constantly change their tactics," and this being the case, games could be of great assistance. Said Perez:

"We have to train people to be quick on their feet - agile problem solvers, agile thinkers - to be able to counteract and develop counter tactics to terrorists on the battlefield. It's really about human inventiveness and creativeness and being able to match wits with the enemy."

Perhaps most interesting is the mention of something Perez calls "fluid intelligence," which is the "ability to change, to meet new problems and to develop new tactics and counter-tactics." ...that sounds a heck of a lot like what we always do in many games, doesn't it? Up until now, Perez says fluid intelligence was thought to be "immutable," in that it couldn't be changed or improved. The general belief was that after the age of 20, "most humans had achieved their brain cell capacity, and that new brain cells were acquired at the expense of existing ones." But playing video games have produced "surprising results" during testing and now, the aforementioned belief may be deemed incorrect.

Rigidity in thinking is a common occurrence. You see it all the time in the sciences. Some one finds an anomaly in an experiment and the first thought is "experimental error". And it usually is an experimental error. But the times when it isn't cause revolutions in science. From what I understand Einstein revolutionized physics based on a few anomalies.

Now if some one could come up with an accepted explanation of the Pioneer anomaly and/or the Flyby anomaly there could be a revolution in physics.

There are people thinking of explanations. But you need a fluid mind, because if you are rigidly locked in accepted theories it is difficult to come up with new ones. Or worse yet the ability to accept the overthrow of the old understanding.

Something called the Tajmar effect may have something to do with the Pioneer and flyby anomalies according to this paper:

Can the Tajmar effect be explained using a modification of inertia? [pdf]

M. E. McCulloch

School of Physics, University of Exeter - Stoker Road, Exeter, EX4 4QL, UK, EU and Marine Science & Engineering, University of Plymouth - Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK, EU

received 4 September 2009; accepted
in final form 3 December 2009 published online 5 January 2010
EPL (Europhysics Letters)

Abstract – The Tajmar effect is an unexplained acceleration observed by accelerometers and laser gyroscopes close to rotating supercooled rings. The observed ratio between the gyroscope and ring accelerations was 3±1.2×10−8. Here, a new model for inertia which has been tested quite successfully on the Pioneer and flyby anomalies is applied to this problem. The model assumes that the inertia of the gyroscope is caused by Unruh radiation that appears as the ring and the fixed stars accelerate relative to it, and that this radiation is subject to a Hubble-scale Casimir effect. The model predicts that the sudden acceleration of the nearby ring causes a slight increase in the inertial mass of the gyroscope, and, to conserve momentum in the reference frame of the spinning Earth, the gyroscope rotates clockwise with an acceleration ratio of 1.78±0.25×10−8 in agreement with the observed ratio. However, this model does not explain the parity violation seen in some of the gyroscope data. To test these ideas the Tajmar experiment (setup B) could be exactly reproduced in the Southern Hemisphere, since the model predicts that the anomalous acceleration should then be anticlockwise.

It is important to have a fluid but sceptical mind. Investigate. Everything is not settled.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Future Of Warfare

Thomas Barnett gave this talk in 2005 when Iraq was falling apart. If you listen closely he discusses the mistake President Present is about to make in Afghanistan.

The video is quite funny and full of salty language. It is also about a half hour and worth every minute.

The bottom line: we need a procedure for fixing failed states. So far the effort has been ad hoc. It needs to be formalized.

You can get more Thomas Barnett at Thomas Barnett.

H/T glemieux at Talk Polywell

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Song Of The Warrior

This is in honor of the fallen at Fort Hood and for the wounded who will need our ongoing help. Here is one way to help:

Update: The competition is over but you can still donate at: Project Valour-IT



Project Valour-IT helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. Items supplied include:

# Voice-controlled Laptops - Operated by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, they allow the wounded to maintain connections with the rest of the world during recovery.
# Wii Video Game Systems - Whole-body game systems increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists in therapy sessions (donated only to medical facilities).
# Personal GPS - Handheld GPS devices build self-confidence and independence by compensating for short-term memory loss and organizational challenges related to severe TBI and severe PTSD.

Another place to donate: The Warrior Song

For those of you who want to sing along: The Warrior Song lyrics

H/T IMAO

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Follow The Constitution

Here is a link to The County Sheriff America's Last Hope. Here is a description:

Sheriff Mack's newest book covers decades of research to prove once and for all that the sheriffs in this country are indeed the ultimate law authority in their respective jurisdictions. The sheriff absolutely has the power and responsibility to defend his citizens against all enemies, including those from our own Federal Government. History, case law, common law and common sense all show clear evidence that the sheriff is the people's protector in all issues of injustice and is responsible for keeping the peace in all matters. He is the last line of defense for his constituents; he is America's last hope to regain our forgotten freedom. This short but powerful book is a must read for all citizens, sheriffs, and government officials that we may all work to return America to the constitutional republic she was meant to be. Amazing as it might be, the sheriff can make this happen!

Now how about that Supreme Court Case? Mack, Printz, vs UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

And the oath that service men and women take?

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Now what about the Oath Keepers?

You can find out more about them at Oath Keepers.

Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, veterans, peace officers, and firefighters who will fulfill the oath we swore to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God.

Our motto is "Not on our watch!"



Cross Posted at Classical Values

Oath Keepers

I just came across a most interesting www site. Oath Keepers. Here is how they describe themselves.

Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, veterans, peace officers, and firefighters who will fulfill the oath we swore to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God.

Our motto is "Not on our watch!"

You know. I took that oath myself. I understand just how those guys feel. And I am with them. All the way.

Here is a list of ten orders they will refuse to obey.

1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.

2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people

3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.

4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.

5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.

6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.

7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.

8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control."

9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.

10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

You know. I think our current President has bit off much more than he can chew.

We are getting our own American Schwarze Kapelle (Black Orchestra) only openly.

It does Obama no good to be Commander in Chief if the military will not follow his orders. I'm not sure the people who put Obama in the White House understood exactly what they were biting off when they made their plans.

A reference to Oath Keepers in the comments to this Atlas Shrugs post Wanted: National Guard For "Internment" Position got me to look into Oath Keepers.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Iran Challenges The US Navy

This is a short history of the war between the US and Iran in the mid 1980s. Iran took a drubbing they are still smarting from twenty years later.

In the 1980s, the United States faced significant security challenges in the Persian Gulf. The Islamic Revolution in Iran had replaced Washington’s ally, the Shah, with a decidedly hostile regime in Tehran. In September 1980, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein seized upon the chaos in Iran by sending Iraqi forces to capture the oil resources located across the border in southern Iran.

That is the opening paragraph. The article is most interesting and follows the give and take of the war. May I suggest a read by those of you interested in recent military history?

Pink Private

You can read a story that explains the picture at Dallas-Fort Worth NBC.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Polywell Gets In On The Act

Polywell Fusion looks to be getting a $2 million boost from the DoD Recovery Act Plan. Here is what the DoD has to say about their plan.

Today, March 20, 2009, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its EXPENDITURE PLAN for the projects to be funded with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Recovery Act provides $7.4 billion to the Department largely for projects that are located at Defense installations spread across all fifty states, District of Columbia and two U.S. territories. The report includes $2.3 billion in construction projects, including two major hospital construction projects: Camp Pendleton, California; Fort Hood, Texas; and a hospital alteration project at the Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, Florida. The plan also contains $3.4 billion for nearly 3,000 facility repair and improvement projects that will immediately generate additional employment in communities around Defense installations. Furthermore, the plan details how $300 million for near-term energy technology research will be allocated. The allocation of the remaining $800 million for Defense facility infrastructure investment be announced at a later date.

There is a pdf of the plan. On pdf page 166 there is a small item under the heading Domestic Energy Supply/Distribution. It is as follows:

Plasma Fusion (Polywell) Demonstrate fusion plasma confinement system for shore and shipboard applications; Joint OSD/USN project. 2.0

The "2.0" is the amount of funding in millions. This indicates the military has a fair amount of confidence in Polywell and the progress made so far in the research.

There is no doubt that if Polywell can be made to work a shore installation would probably be the first and easiest application. Next would come size reductions for shipboard use. And if we can get the weight down enough - rockets for space. Or perhaps use as low cost power supply for a ground based laser propulsion system.

I just looked at Amazon and there is no book out yet on Polywell Fusion. I have heard rumors of people writing books on the subject so maybe we will see one in the coming months.

In the mean time you can look at this www page to get some understanding of what is involved:

Bussard's IEC Fusion Technology (Polywell Fusion) Explained

H/T KitemanSA at Talk Polywell

Cross Posted at Classical Values

How About A Pop Up Blocker?

War news is commenting on the disarray in the current administration with reference to defense spending.

No one seems to know what is happening. There is no planning. No strategic thinking. No idea on what to do or where to go. There are competing interests at play. Congress wants one thing. Special interest groups want something else. And the defense contractors want the contracts.

The one thing that is lacking is leadership .... and that is the job of the President? He probably has a grace period of one or two more months .... and if he is not giving leadership and guidance by then .... I can guarantee you that problems are going to pop up everywhere.

Isn't that what pop-up blockers were invented for? I wonder if they are easier to treat than bimbo eruptions?

Why hasn't Polywell Fusion been funded by the Obama administration?
Bussard's IEC Fusion Technology (Polywell Fusion) Explained

An Insufficiency Of Troops

When he was campaigning for President Mr. Obama thought that bombing people was bad.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism elsewhere, he brought up Afghanistan and said, "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

Evidently he has changed his mind.

Fri Jan 23, 2009 5:11 pm ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Suspected U.S. missiles killed 18 people on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border Friday, security officials said, the first attacks on the al-Qaida stronghold since President Barack Obama took office. At least five foreign militants were among those killed in the strikes by unmanned aircraft in two parts of the frontier region, an intelligence official said without naming them. There was no information on the identities of the others.

Pakistan's leaders had expressed hope Obama might halt the strikes, but few observers expected he would end a tactic that U.S. officials say has killed several top al-Qaida operatives and is denying the terrorist network a long-held safe haven.

Good to see Mr. Obama decisively putting into action the policies that he really believes in. Those of George Bush.

Happy days are here again. I wonder if he has any plans to bomb Iran after Pakistan?



H/T Pal2Pal

Cross Posted at Classical Values

It Didn't Work Out

Well isn't this special. Obama says a visit to wounded troops would be inappropriate.

BERLIN (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his spokesman said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey.

Well isn't that interesting.

So what would be more appropriate? Putting On The Ritz.

++ Obama Takes Time to Work Out ++

4:49 p.m.: Obama enters the luxury Ritz Carlton hotel wearing a T-shirt, black sweatpants and white trainers -- apparantly to work out in the hotel's gym. He kept up the campaigning on the way there, smiling and waving at tourists and other onlookers.

What a guy. Lifting weights is more important to him than lifting the spirits of wounded troops. Sounds like a different kind of politics all right. I'm not sure I like it. It is not the kind of change I was hoping for.

Atlas Shrugs may have some insight about what was behind the change in plans.

A very interesting email from a source I must protect suggests that Obama's visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center had the green light until a campaign staffer raised a stink about going with Obama. (There are rules meant to ensure candidates do not use soldiers or military bases for campaign purposes, and they state that personal and committee staff may accompany a sitting senator on a visit but campaign staff may not.) I am told that when one of Obama's campaign staff was told he or she would be denied access, the visit was canceled.

The last-minute cancellation speaks more poorly of this unidentified staffer than of Obama himself. But in the end, shouldn't Obama have been able to say, "fine, the staffer stays in Berlin (or where-ever) and I'm going to Landstuhl? Can he still say so?

I'm sceptical of unnamed sources. However, the military rule is that he could visit the military as long as he brought only his personal staff and not his campaign staff with him. After all he visited the military in Afghanistan without a problem.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if it was part of an evolution in his campaign tactics to prevent gaffs. Keeping Obama from making public appearances without his paid minders is something I can understand. How will he know what to say without some one whispering in his ear? Which probably says something unflattering about Obama's (57) states of mind.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

We Owe It To Our Military

McCain made a great point at the NRA convention and he changed my mind about my on again off again support for him. We owe it to those who have fought and died in Iraq.

Senator Obama has said, if elected, he will withdraw Americans from Iraq quickly no matter what the situation on the ground is and no matter what U.S. military commanders advise. But if we withdraw prematurely from Iraq, al Qaeda in Iraq will survive, proclaim victory and continue to provoke sectarian tensions that, while they have been subdued by the success of the surge, still exist, and are ripe for provocation by al Qaeda. Civil war in Iraq could easily descend into genocide, and destabilize the entire region as neighboring powers come to the aid of their favored factions. A reckless and premature withdrawal would be a terrible defeat for our security interests and our values. Iran will view it as a victory, and the biggest state supporter of terrorists, a country with nuclear ambitions and a stated desire to destroy the Sta te of Israel, will see its influence in the Middle East grow significantly.

The consequences of our defeat would threaten us for years, and those who argue for premature withdrawal, as both Senators Obama and Clinton do, are arguing for a course that would eventually draw us into a wider and more difficult war that would entail far greater dangers and sacrifices than we have suffered to date. Thanks to the counterinsurgency instigated by General Petreaus, after four years of terribly costly mistakes, we have a realistic chance to succeed in helping the forces of political reconciliation prevail in Iraq, and the democratically elected Iraqi Government, with a professional and competent Iraqi army, impose its authority throughout the country and defend its borders. We have a realistic chance of denying al Qaeda any sanctuary in Iraq. We have a realistic chance of leaving behind in Iraq a force for stability and peace in the region, and not a cause for a wider and far more dangerous war. I do not argue against withdrawal because I am indifferent to war and the suffering it inflicts on too many American families. I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later. I want our soldiers home, too, just as quickly as we can bring them back without risking everything they suffered for, and burdening them with greater sacrifices in the years ahead. That I will not do. I have spent my life in service to my country, and I will never, never, never risk her security for the sake of my own ambitions. I will defend her, and all her freedoms, so help me God. And I ask you to help me in that good cause. Thank you, and God bless you.

I think in these dangerous times McCain is the only competent war leader on the ballot. Thank you for reminding me John.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Is The US Tooling Up For War With Iran?

There is a whole lot to cover on this subject so I'm going to give mostly links and let you make up your own mind. Be sure to read the comments at the links provided as they tend to add information or present countervailing views.

Fleet Positions for War.

We believe the only successful exit strategy from Iraq travels a road through Iran. In general we subscribe to a theory put forth by Stratfor that events will build up towards the brink of war before a peaceful resolution is possible. We don't necessarily believe that is how it has to be, rather we believe that is how our current leadership believes it has to be. Part of that strategy includes the buildup of rhetoric, the shuffling of resources, and the preparation in Iraq for a military action against Iran. We observe these events taking place. Much thanks to Yankee Sailor for his collections regarding the developing time line.

Think Long and Hard as You Contemplate What This Means

There has been a political split in the Pentagon since 2005, when those who wanted to move forward under the cooperative model as opposed to the unilateral model for military action were able to shift the Pentagon position through the release of official strategic papers. Under Gates, the Pentagon has tried to shift to a cooperative phase from what has been a unilateral phase of military action. The cooperative approach is championed by Rice, Gates, and people like Adm. Fallon. Many neo-conservatives, which unfortunately includes a bunch of big blue Navy folks I won't name specifically, form up the unilateral military action side.

Money quote from the piece:

Admiral William Fallon shakes his head slowly, and his eyes say, These guys [Iran] have no idea how much worse it could get for them. I am the reasonable one.

Building a Case for War in Iran - Part 2

News continues to roll in that the United States may be nearing a decision to strike Iran. In my previous installment, I discussed the storm of tough talk currently unleashed from Washington. In this installment I’ll lay out some of the other events in the region in recent weeks.

First, an intriguing report was published alleging that Washington authorized the execution and funding of a covert offensive against Iran in recent weeks.

Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, “unprecedented in its scope.”

Key graph:

All this costs money, which in turn must be authorized by Congress, or at least a by few witting members of the intelligence committees. That has not proved a problem. An initial outlay of $300 million to finance implementation of the finding has been swiftly approved with bipartisan support, apparently regardless of the unpopularity of the current war and the perilous condition of the U.S. economy.

Lee Smith at Michael Totten's writes: Hezbollah's Endgame? Pt. 2

David Wurmser, formerly Vice President Cheney's Middle East adviser, writes in to comment on Iran's role in the Beirut crisis.

“Iran has suffered some pretty serious defeats in Iraq, foremost is that the Shiites there kind of turned on Iran. May they not need to pull back and focus on their role as the champion of the Shiites right now, even at the cost of compromising their efforts to jump the Sunni-Shiite divide? They may actually be in no better a shape among Lebanon's Shiites as they are among Iraq's. Second, there were these really odd nasty exchanges between Zawahiri and Iran, which may have been born of Iran's desire right now to solidify its own role as Shiite champion."

Omar Fadhil of Iraq the Model comments at Pajamas Media. Iranian-Made Rocket Discovered Near Basra Alarms Iraqis

The Iraqi minister of defense pushed the debate with the Iranians over their provision of weapons to Shia militias one more step on Monday. Minister Abdul Qadir Obeidi indirectly confronted the Iranians, without naming them, with new findings that prove their involvement in the arming of Shia militias.

On Monday, state-owned al-Sabah published a statement by the minister in which he spoke of the capture of a certain type of rocket that was never found in militia-held caches until now:

Defense minister Abdul Qadir Mohammed Obeidi revealed that army troops found a 200-mm ground-to-ground rocket manufactured in 2007 during a search operation by the troops north of Basra. Obeidi told al-Sabah in an exclusive interview that, under international laws and norms, this kind of rocket can be traded only with the approval of parliaments and is used only at times of extreme necessity during wars … and wondered how this rocket entered the country. Obeidi added that this rocket can be launched only from a special platform and by specialized crews.

From what I read in Iraq’s two biggest newspapers, it seems that the government is trying to step up the rhetoric against Iranian interference in Iraq and to induce uproar among the Iraqi public.

Noah Pollak.

Hezbollah’s thug-in-chief, Hassan Nasrallah, addressed Lebanon today. What he said is not promising. You can read the entire transcript here, but it’s not necessary. The following snippet tells you everything you need to know:

I said . . . that any hand that reaches for the resistance [i.e., Hezbollah] and its arms will be cut off. Israel tried that in the July War, and we cut its hand off. We do not advise you to try us. Whoever is going to target us will be targeted by us. Whoever is going to shoot at us will be shot by us.

Captain Ed.

Iraqi soldiers have begun evacuating families from portions of Sadr City, a sign that a large offensive will start shortly against the Mahdi Army militia that have long controlled the sector of Baghdad. Two stadiums have been secured for sheltering the evacuees as the government of Nouri al-Maliki attempts to break Moqtada al-Sadr’s last stronghold and end mortar attacks on the Green Zone. Maliki also wants to end Iran’s influence in Iraq, which caused Iran to cut off security talks with Maliki and the US:

Gateway Pundit has: A Gift From Tehran-- ARMED HEZBOLLAH THUGS Roam Beirut ...Update: 1 Dead- Saudis Warn Hezbollah

Beirut Spring posted this photo of a bridge banner in Beirut that reads: "A gift from the municipality of Tehran to the righteous, resisting Lebanese people."
Yup. That sums it up.

All in all I'd say something was up. Namely a show down with Iran. I'd take the movement of the fleet as a sign of readiness for contingencies as opposed to the US initiating an attack. The question is: what will the Iranian response be to the dismantling of their proxies?

Update 09 May 008 1217z

Hezbollah's Subtle Takeover

Hezbollah has taken control of the media in Lebanon, and their propaganda campaign has already begun. They are currently presenting themselves as liberators of Lebanon, and allies of the Lebanese Army against a corrupt government supported by pro-government snipers and brigrands.

Hezbollah's militant takeover of Beirut and its systematic destruction of the authority of the state and freedom of the press suggests a sophisticated and planned campaign to take power. There is no hiding the violence Hezbollah used to seize Beirut and cut it off from the rest of the country. But as their media campaign is already showing, Hezbollah is employing subtle and sophisticated mechanisms to take over the rest of Lebanon. All news which could be construed as negative behaviors, such as the blatant destruction and corruption of Lebanese institutions, is hidden beneath a Hezbollah-dominated media blackout.

No one knows if Hezbollah is currently occupying government building, re-routing the telecommunications networks, placing weapons in areas they could not gain access to before, and more. If Hezbollah wins this battle, this information will never be made public.

Instapundit says:

I GET AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER from an oil trader and today it includes this tidbit: "In an interesting twist of OPEC news – in the folder titled 'Adequate Supply' – Iran has chartered an armada of supertankers to act as floating storage for as many as 28 million barrels of crude oil that is backing up on them. Analysts are blaming worldwide refineries yet to recover from maintenance programs. It’s not the first time that Iran has had trouble finding buyers; they temporarily floated 20 million barrels in 2006. No, I can’t explain this in light of record oil prices and continual cries for more release of OPEC crude oil. "

U.S. crude stocks are up, too. This is unlikely to be the case, but here's a thought: If I were, say, the United States government, and I anticipated military action in the mideast that might interrupt oil supplies, I wouldn't want to stockpile directly because that would be a tipoff. But if I manipulated markets into running up stocks, I wouldn't have to. . . . Nah. They're not that smart.

Note that 28 million barrels of oil is $3 bn dollars worth at current prices give or take. I wonder if Iran is expecting a strike on their refineries or oil fields?

Many links from Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Why I'm Not A Libertarian

Libertarians talk a good game on national defense but hate all wars. Libs do not get that wars are a series of disasters leading to victory. They don't have the bottom to ride out the disasters and turn them around. They have turned into Copperhead Democrats.

They don't get the American Jacksonian tradition.

I'm a Jacksonian - which is why I could never be a Libertarian Party member with the party in its current form. Who is the Jacksonian in the race for president? Who said:

"We are Americans and we will never surrender, they will."

That man will be the next President of the USA.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Al Qaeda In Iraq

The US Military has put out a slide show about Al Qaeda In Iraq [pdf]. The first few slides are innocuous enough. After that it gets pretty graphic. Pictures of wounds on torture victims. Mass graves. And other such vileness.

After looking at the presentation it is no wonder the Iraqis hate Al Qaeda and all it stands for.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Stretch Them To The Breaking Point

Stretch them to the breaking point and then increase the pressure. Collapse will follow. In the early days of the siege of Richmond, Lee admitted that if Grant had been able to bring one or two more brigades to bear he would have been crushed as he had no reserves left.

It appears that this is what Bush has done in Iraq according to the Weekly Standard. It appears that Bush made one of the most audacious moves in civilian control of the Military since Lincoln appointed Relentless Grant to lead the Union Armies.

In September, Rumsfeld had rejected the idea of a surge when retired general Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the Army and a member of the advisory Defense Policy Review Board, met with him and Pace. Keane insisted the "train and leave" strategy, as Bush referred to it, was failing. He proposed a counterinsurgency strategy, the addition of five to eight Army brigades, and a primary focus on taking back Baghdad. Rumsfeld was unconvinced. But now, with Bush favoring a strategy nearly identical to Keane's, he didn't object. "Rumsfeld was never a lose guy," a Bush adviser said. "He always wanted to win."

With Bush's connivance, Cheney asked the chiefs a series of questions designed to ease their qualms about a surge. What would be the consequences of losing in Iraq? Was the Iraqi army capable of quelling the sectarian violence without substantial help from American troops?

The chiefs had real grievances to air, and they didn't hold back. Schoomaker cited the stress on combat forces from repeated tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. That, Bush told me, was "the main thing I remember from that meeting. That was clearly a factor in some of the people around the table's thinking .  .  . if you sustain our level, much less increase the level, you could, Mr. President, strain the force, which is an important consideration."

Bush agreed that strain was a problem. Then he delivered a sharp rejoinder, touching on a theme he returned to in nearly every meeting on Iraq. "The biggest strain on the force would be a defeat in Iraq," he said. Winning trumped strain. To alleviate the strain, the president committed to enlarging the Army by two divisions and increasing the size of the Marine Corps. The chiefs had two more complaints. The military, practically alone, was carrying the load in Iraq. Where were the civilians from the State Department and other agencies? Again, Bush agreed with their point. He promised to assign more civilians to Iraq. (The number of provincial reconstruction teams was soon doubled.)

Their final problem was the unreliability of Iraq's Shia government and army. Would Iraqi forces show up and do their part in the surge? And would they act in a non-sectarian manner, treating Sunnis the same as Shia? Bush said he'd get a public commitment on both counts from Maliki before making a final decision on the surge. And he did.

The article goes into General Petraeus' call for more brigades. The initial plan called for a one or two brigade surge. Petraeus asked for 5 brigades and got them.

On top of that Congress voted to increase the size of the military. The Democrat controlled Congress. Obviously it is never wise to come up short of divisions in wartime. It could adversely affect re-election prospects. Even of Democrats.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Our Most Important Weapon

The Volokh Conspiracy is having a discussion of women in combat. Here is my 2¢.

I remember reading where being a woman in combat had a number of positive effects (in the current environment).

They connect with the females in the population better. Very helpful when fighting an insurgency.

They also shame Iraqis who are nor performing up to snuff. I mean seriously. What guy wants to be outshone in a masculine pursuit by a woman?

Or suppose the shoe is on the other foot? What does it do to the morale of our super masculine foes when they get beaten by a woman?

I understand the costs - what are the benefits? To the military. In our current war fighting situation.

It the current environment I think it has a lot of advantages that outweigh the disadvantages. The main one being that it gives women ideas. Our most important weapon.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values