Update no.269

Update from the Heartland

No.269

29.1.07 – 4.2.07

Blog version: http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,
Friends, contributors and subscribers sent a number of essays and articles on or related to the Battle for Iraq and/or the War of Islamic Fascism. All are available on-line; if anyone has difficulty finding them, please let me know; I would be honored to provide them.
"Historical Review of Iraq Situation"
by Raymond S. Kraft,
posted: 25.March.2006
A comparative essay between Nazi Germany and Iraq. While I quibble with a few details, the message remains fairly accurate from my perspective. The case is made for taking the long view and overcoming our obstacles.
"Hating Horatio"
by Jack Wheeler
dated 24.January.2007
I was not familiar with the story of Horatius. A good story. Reminds me of the Battle of Thermopylae – 300 Spartans stood alone against tens of thousands of Persians. A story of courage and dedication in the face of adversity. An important lesson for today.
"The Fight in Najaf"
by Charles Krauthammer
published: Friday, 2.February.2007
A version of the four facets of the current conflagration in Iraq. He does a good job of presenting the situation. I like the last two paragraphs of his article.
"We have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq. But when Arabs kill Arabs and Shiites kill Shiites and Sunnis kill all in a spasm of violence that is blind and furious and has roots in hatreds born long before America was even a republic, to place the blame on the one player, the one country, the one military that has done more than any other to try to separate the combatants and bring conciliation is simply perverse.
"It infantilizes Arabs. It demonizes Americans. It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts: Iraq is their country. We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war."

The test of Prime Minister Nouri Kamel al-Maliki has a finite time. [266] The world is watching to see if he can pass this crucial test. May God bless our soldiers and Marines as they will be asked to continue to bleed to help al-Maliki pass his test. We can only pray for the safety of our troops and the worthiness of the Iraqi prime minister.

The cacophony of naysayers is deafening. The implication of such dominant noise is that guys like me are a meaningless and miniscule minority. With all this baying going on around us, I continually return to THE one essential question – if not Iraq, then where should we fight the inevitable battle with Islamic Fascism? Where! Being anti-war is like being pro-life, all sane people are for those political states. I have listened attentively to Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, Hillary Clinton, and even Charles Rangel. (I will not profess the same respect for John Murtha.) Every single one of them stands against the President, virtually no matter what he says or does. It is easy to criticize a president, any president: our current flavor has made himself an extraordinarily easy target. Heck, I have and continue to criticize the President myself, but there is one fundamental difference between my criticism and those of the naysayers. I want him to succeed, and I try to offer a solution! The naysayers tell us incessantly that it is time to abandon Iraq, force the fledgling Iraqi government to stand on its own, to make the necessary political compromises, and to defend itself; we are tired to spilling American blood for Iraqi freedom. What keeps nagging my cognitive processes is . . . OK, fine . . . withdraw . . . to where? Where do the naysayers propose we fight the next battle or even the war itself? Where?
The current situation is analogous to the Senate holding public hearings and passing resolutions objecting to Roosevelt’s collusion with Churchill to focus on Europe first and then Japan, or FDR’s insistence on Northern France instead of Churchill’s proposal to drive north from Italy to cut off the Soviets' advance into Germany. And now, we have senators from both major parties publicly chiding the President against aggressive moves toward Iran. Excuse me! My urge to use a string of profane epithets is barely under control. Certainly, we should not threaten anyone unless we are fully prepared to execute the threats (like upholstering a pistol), and we are hardly even close to being mobilized to the level necessary to take on the IRI regime. However, we should be leaving the mad mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran with a strong implication that our hair trigger has pressure on it. My objections to the President’s mismanagement of the winning-the-peace phase of the Battle of Iraq pales to invisibility when compared to my anger with what is happening in Congress. Weakening the President may serve the Democratic Party’s political agenda and objectives, but it is an absolute bloody godsend to our enemies. We are at war!!

As if the congressional machinations are not sufficiently disturbing, the citizens of Boston endured the convulsions of a multiple bomb scare at the hands of two bone-head men who failed to mature passed adolescence. The ill-conceived and criminally executed cartoon advertising campaign of the Turner Broadcasting System’s Cartoon Network deserves harsh punishment under the law. The two fringe yayhoos involved decided to bask in their moment of light talking about hair. We also learned that our British cousins foiled another terrorist attack; this time involving at least eight young Muslims in Birmingham, who were in the finally stages of their plan to kidnap a specific British Army soldier, behead him on video, and distribute the video on the Internet, presumably as a warning to other Muslims not to serve in the British Army. I trust the British will mete out appropriate punishment. Then, we have a simple traffic stop in Kansas City that raises my hackles. A large, apparently pregnant, black woman was pulled over for reasons that are not yet entirely clear. She was asked to exit her automobile and get down on the ground. So the story goes, she miscarried the next day. Of course, the Press and the liberals are up in arms over the suggested abuse of this woman. I bring this incident up as a promising method for our terrorist enemies . . . put your bombs under the jacket of a black woman, who claims to be pregnant, and voila – no one should confront her no matter what or how many illegal actions she may do.

John Stossel offered an articulate, cogent assessment of the Federal government's so-called war on drugs in his essay "Big, Big Government," published on Wednesday, 31.January.2007. Unfortunately, those who use drugs are not collectively active or influential politically. For those who find no affinity to psychotropic substances, the argument against the war on drugs hardly inspires enthusiasm for political action. Stossel used the coordinated raids on 11 medical-marijuana centers in Los Angeles County by Federal drug agents two weeks ago, to illuminate the travesty of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 that has mutated cancerously into the biggest violation of the Founding principles and the Constitution itself, in the history of this Grand Republic. To appreciate Stossel's argument and the essence of my opinion, I urge everyone to read specifically Associate Justice O'Connor's dissenting opinion in Gonzales v. Raich [545 U.S. 1 (2005)] [183]. One sentence from her opinion reflects the most succinct authoritative reason why the Controlled Substances Act is wrong. O'Connor wrote,
"Congress cannot use its authority under the [Commerce] Clause to contravene the principle of state sovereignty embodied in the Tenth Amendment."
One day, we shall see the light and correct this obscene abuse. We shall overcome.

Comments and contributions from Update no.268:
"President Bush gave an eloquent speech in content. His delivery is always a problem. His lack of oratory expertise will dog him forever. People miss his message because his lack of oratory expertise. Unfortunate, because we are doomed to repeat the mess of 35 years ago at home.
"Let me be succinct about Hanoi Jane. A few years ago I was part of a private reception prior to an event in which HJ was present with her former husband. As I entered the small room she came over to me and said hello. The Marine in me was unable to say hello back even though it was rude. I just looked at her and walked away wishing she had faced the maximum punishment as a traitor to the USA. I remain in the same condition today.
"It is our generation that is flawed today. We are either unwilling or incompetent to do what is right. And, have the debate private is the right thing to do without the public grandstanding for personal gain. What fools we are to put ourselves in the world's eye as incompetent morons in our own house.
"War is preferable to cowardice and neglect."

Another contribution:
"I remembered only vaguely the story of Horatio. [See "Hating Horatio" by Jack Wheeler, dated 24.January.2007] Even, in a way reminded me of another story, maybe legend, maybe true, of the boy who stuck his finger in the dike to stop the leak, and thus saved Holland. One could even think of Churchill in the years just before WW2.
"While I personally would not characterize GW's speech the other night as eloquent, it was, for him, one of his better ones. And he did make his point, did stand his ground. I know too that he did it for all of us. It's his job, yes, to defend us, even when we hesitate to be defended. We hired him to make tough decisions. He's certainly made a number over his tenure. I have not agreed with all -- maybe even a lot -- at least the decision as it was put forth by him. The idea may have been right, but to me the method to be employed was not.
"Just before GW made his final decision to invade Iraq, to get Saddam and get all the WMD's, I wrote a piece which I posted [xxxxx] stating that I believed that if we went into Iraq we could easily defeat the armies, and get Saddam or kill him. But, after that we would find ourselves in a growing quagmire and maybe be there for years. I voted, in my mind, no -- don't go. There are other ways."

Another contribution:
Re: TWA 800.
"I witnessed a wing explosion, on the ground, I might add. An empty wing tank was having a fuel contents problem diagnosed. 24volt leads (connections) to the unit were live and came into contact in the vapour filled tank. The result was very embarrassing minor explosion and one bulged and very leaky centre wing section with a blackened PRC coating. The aircraft flew again but we never quite cured the leaks on that one. The embarrassment was I was in charge of the line and at that moment was in fact giving evidence to a board of enquiry on an earlier incident when the explosion happened. The senior officer I/C the board was not a happy bunny and suggested that I leave immediately to investigate. Which of course I was pleased to do! The odd thing was nobody ever took the rap for that. When the aircraft was successfully transferred to another squadron, as a going concern, they kept asking us why she leaked so badly from the port inner wing! We never knew, of course.
"But.... another matter on a 747 on a warm summer's night."
My reply:
What type of aircraft was it?
The aviation industry has known for many decades that fuel cells contain flammable fuel-air mixtures, especially partially filled tanks. Add significant heat as was the case with the TWA 800 (ambient temperature in the 90’s F. [30’s C.] and the air conditioner packs were directly below the CWT), the volatility of the residual fuel-air mixture increases substantially, and yet remains well below the spontaneous ignition point. Aircraft design, also for decades, recognizes the facts and routed all systems around fuel tanks. When a penetration was required especially with electrical cabling, sealed conduits were utilized so that if arcing occurred between wires, the energy was contained in the conduit. As such, I am not quite sure how live electrical leads could come in contact with the fuel vapor? Fueling operations used to be more dangerous because of static discharge, but grounding and closed-circuit refueling procedures eliminated that risk. I’ll bet the evidence regarding the ignition source in your example was probably quite clear and perhaps unequivocal. And again, there is no debate regarding the explosion of the nearly empty CWT on TWA 800. However, the usual evidence of tankage explosions was not found with the TWA 800 incident. Also, ignition can come from sources other than electrical arcing, e.g., high energy penetrations vaporize metal providing sufficient energy for ignition.
. . . with the follow-up:
"The aircraft was an English Electric Lightning Mk 6 single seater. This aircraft had a bad reputation, in the early days for catching fire. As you will know if you look at your recognition manual this was described as an all 'aluminium' hot pursuit ship by all who knew her. Several had been lost to reheat (afterburner) fires which regrettably burnt through the flying controls and associated wiring in a few seconds and resulted in pilots banging out with Martin Baker. This was eventually cured when a programme of x-ray {ing} all the fuel couplings after reassembly during servicing. The man hours/flying hour were prodigious but we were all proud to have served this beast. 1500 mph in level flight 1950s technology. An amazing ride too, it could climb on its jet pipes and drink JP4 or what ever you had to put in it like a thirsty camel. We had one without external fuel fly off on air test climbed to FL400 over the airfield turned and called finals 3 greens. We had one mad pilot who did a mock approach with everything down on one of your Mediterranean carriers. He said there was standing room only on the deck as he approached and went round again! I should like to have seen a picture taken that day."

My very best wishes to all. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Cheers,
Cap :-)