How to create deterrence? The way John Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis. President Bush should issue the following declaration, adopting Kennedy's language while changing the names of the miscreants:
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.
This should be followed with a simple explanation: "As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people."
This policy -- the Holocaust Declaration -- would establish a firm benchmark that would outlive this administration. Every future president -- and every serious presidential candidate -- would have to publicly state whether or not he supports the Holocaust Declaration.
For the first time since the time of Jesus, Israel is the home of the world's largest Jewish community. An implacable enemy has openly declared genocidal intentions against it -- in clear violation of the U.N. charter -- and is pursuing the means to carry out that intent. The world does nothing. Some, like the Russians, are literally providing fuel for the fire.
For those who believe that America stands for something in the world -- that the nation that has liberated more peoples than any other has even the most minimal moral vocation -- there can be no more pressing cause than preventing the nuclear annihilation of an allied democracy, the last refuge and hope of an ancient people openly threatened with the final Final Solution.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/20/2008 13:27 ||
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What you can learn about America on the deck of the USS 'Theodore Roosevelt.'
by P.J. O'Rourke
Nice piece from P.J. Excerpt:
Some say John McCain's character was formed in a North Vietnamese prison. I say those people should take a gander at what John chose to do--voluntarily. Being a carrier pilot requires aptitude, intelligence, skill, knowledge, discernment, and courage of a kind rarely found anywhere but in a poem of Homer's or a half gallon of Dewar's. I look from John McCain to what the opposition has to offer. There's Ms. Smarty-Pantsuit, the Bosnia-Under-Sniper-Fire poster gal, former prominent Washington hostess, and now the JV senator from the state that brought you Eliot Spitzer and Bear Stearns. And there's the happy-talk boy wonder, the plaster Balthazar in the Cook County political crèche, whose policy pronouncements sound like a walk through Greenwich Village in 1968: "Change, man? Got any spare change? Change?"
Some people say John McCain isn't conservative enough. But there's more to conservatism than low taxes, Jesus, and waterboarding at Gitmo. Conservatism is also a matter of honor, duty, valor, patriotism, self-discipline, responsibility, good order, respect for our national institutions, reverence for the traditions of civilization, and adherence to the political honesty upon which all principles of democracy are based. Given what screw-ups we humans are in these respects, conservatism is also a matter of sense of humor. Heard any good quips lately from Hillary or Barack?
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/20/2008 00:03 ||
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#1
History channel is running a great series on the "Big E" - the carrier Enterprise during WWII. The series uses interviews, file footage, and computer graphics to chronicle the history and heroism of the men who served on the Enterprise. At one point early in the war, the ship was the sole remaining carrier in the US fleet. The series is called "Battle 360".
Enterprise entered World War II on the morning of December 7, 1941, when her scout planes encountered the Japanese squadrons attacking Pearl Harbor. Not until May 14, 1945, when a Kamikaze attack off Kyushu, Japan, left a gaping hole in her flight deck, was she forced to leave the war.
Of the more than twenty major actions of the Pacific War, Enterprise engaged in all but two. Her planes and guns downed 911 enemy planes; her bombers sank 71 ships, and damaged or destroyed 192 more. Her presence inspired both pride and fear: pride in her still unmatched combat record, and fear in the knowledge that Enterprise and hard fighting were never far apart.
The most decorated ship of the Second World War, Enterprise changed the very course of a war she seemed to have been expressly created for.
Posted by: George Smiley ||
04/20/2008 9:11 Comments ||
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#3
Home Base to Strike Force! Attack! I say again, ATTACK!
Wilco, Captain Brown, just as soon as I find the bastards.
Commander McClusky, sir! Surface ship at ten oclock! Appears to be a single destroyer, sir.
VB-6, were turning to port to follow that ships wake. Should point us right at the Japanese carriers.
1030
Bomber flight, I have multiple ships on the horizon, bearing 354. God! What a mess! Theyre in total disarray, going every which way.
Commander McClusky, sir! I see three carriers among all those ships.
Roger. OK, people, this is what well do. Lt. Best, take VB-6 down on the starboard carrier. Lt. Gallaher, Im leading VS-6 down on the other one. Well leave the third carrier for the next pass.
Aye, aye, sir. Wilco, sir.
Sir! Where are the enemy fighters?
I dont see em, either, Lieutenant. Get ready for our bombing run.
Commander, Lt. Henry. I have what looks like our planes making a low-level attack against the carrier to port. Enemy Zeroes are after our guys! Oh, God! Our guys are getting slaughtered!
R-roger, Lieutenant. Theres nothing we can do for them. Were near the push-over point for our dive.
Aye, aye, sir.
Lt. Best, there is aircraft debris scattered all on one side of our target! Our torpedo bombers must have been wiped out on their launch run!
Roger. Proceed with push-over. Here we go!
Yahoo! Didja see that xplosion! Right on the ol meatball!
Yay! Put mine among all them parked bombers an fuel lines! Wow! What a fire!
Easterman! You got a Zero on your tail! Break right! Tat-tat-tat! Gotim!
Enemy fighters comin outta the sun at three oclock high!
Strike force leader to bombers! Scatter! Rendezvous at the Enterprise. Our jobs done here.
Aye, aye, Commander.
Yes, sir! Soon as I get away from these Japs!
I got a Zero on my tail! Somebody help me Ar-ar-gh!
1040
Base, this is Bomber Strike Leader. It is my pleasure to report that VS-6 and VB-6 have successfully hit the Kaga and Akagi. VB-3 has bombed Soryu. All three carriers are burning fiercely.
Posted by: George Smiley ||
04/20/2008 9:30 Comments ||
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#4
There will always be an Enterprise in the USSN.
Posted by: George Smiley ||
04/20/2008 9:32 Comments ||
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#5
It might be a bit Iain M Banks but could you yanks name a carrier "Comparative Advantage"? It's such an awesome name for a ship.
#6
We must bear in mind that even in the budding "Carrier/Air Navy", serious ideological and technological competition existed between the "Torpedo Admirals" versus the "Bomber/Dive Bomber Admirals", wid the latter also being further segmented into those whom favored the USN taking charge of any and all US land-based coastal patrol- and attack bombers from the US Army Air Corp [USAAF/USAF] - "Torpedo Attack" as a Carrier- and Naval Community-Ideo was generally held to be the elder and more, true "Navy", "Decisive", and "Knightly/
Chivalric" than the "Bomber/Dive Bomber" Carrier-Navy communities-ideos. THINK "LIGHT" versus "HEAVY".
By the time of Pearl Harbor, the issue was decided as the USN was already recognizing that dedicated Dive-Bombers and Multipurpose Attack Bombers were cheaper and more effective agz enemy shipping than Torpedo Attack per se. AT MIDWAY, US torpedo squadrons were unfortunate enough to not only come up agz Japanese fleet fighter air cover but also enemy aircraft including fighters returning from their Midway strike, and also not counting Japanese fighters taking off from their own carriers in opposition.
IIRC, E.G. FUCHIDA > WALDRON'S TORPEDO-8 [USS HORNET]ATTACK AND DESTRUCTION > Fuchida estimated that at least 50-100 Japanese fighters/planes engaged the 15 TBDS of Torpedo 8 during its attack run.
#7
Herman Wouk's "War and Remembrance" deals with the Battle of Midway (and much of the rest of the Pacific war) exceptionally well. Another excellent account of the WWII escipades of the USS Enterprise is "The Big E", by Cdr Edward P. Stafford, USN. I've got both books (and a half-dozen others).
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/20/2008 23:13 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
