Nat'l Security Archive

The Iraq War is over.

We won.

By every measure, The United States and coalition forces have conclusively defeated all enemies in Iraq, pacified the country, deposed the previous regime, successfully helped to establish a new functioning democratic government, and suppressed any lingering insurgencies. The war has come to an end. And we won.

What more indication do you need? An announcement from the outgoing Bush administration? It's not gonna happen. An announcement from the incoming Obama administration? That's really not gonna happen. A declaration of victory by the media? Please. Don't make me laugh. A concession of surrender by what few remaining insurgents remain in hiding? Forget about it.

The moment has come to acknowledge the obvious. To overtly declare a fact that has already been true for quite some time now. Let me repeat:

WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ.

The Iraq War is over. We won.

(Graphic via the now-defunct A Small Victory)

Saddam guilty, sentenced to swing. More at Hot Air.

As I predicted. Almost three years ago. Sort of.

Countdown to moonbats questioning the timing — in three... two... one....

Hang them. Hang them all.

Michelle Malkin has all the links.

"McCarthyism" has a new definition today:

McCarthyism: efforts by members of a political opposition to subvert the policies of an elected government through the selective illegal release of classified or sensitive government information with the intent of affecting policy, swaying public opinion, damaging an administration, or creating scandal where none exists.*

New definition created in "honor" of Mary O. McCarthy, Democrat appointee at the CIA, fired for leaking classified information to the media.

Rope. Tree. Traitor. Some assembly required.

Coverage at:
Michelle Malkin
Protein Wisdom
Ace of Spades (with more here, here, and here)
Captain's Quarters
Powerline
Flopping Aces
And of course Emperor Misha I

* Yes, there's some redundancy in there. It's late, I'm tired, and the definition might undergo modification when I've had some sleep.

Yes, that's me Glenn is quoting.

As part of Cap'n Ed's Gitmo document study, I volunteered to examine one set of hearing transcripts.

ARB (Administrative Review Board) Transcripts #1, the document set assigned to me, was 202 pages of documents which were unclassified and had the "For Official Use Only" markings stricken. The documents give details of 33 hearings of the military panel which decides whether each particular Guantanamo detainee ought to be released, or should continue being detained.

What the documents I reviewed do not contain is the actual evidence, either classified or unclassified, against the detainee. The hearings reviewed were held, in part, so that the detainee might have an opportunity to make the case that he ought to be released.

In each hearing, the detainee had a representative to assist him in making his case, and a translator was present.

The documents I reviewed thus contained only

• procedural notes (example: "the Presiding Officer read the hearing instructions to the Detainee and confirmed that the Detainee understood the process.")
  
• references to other documents (ex.: "the Designated Military Officer presented Exhibit DMO-1, the Unclassified Summary of Evidence to the Administrative Review Board.")
  
• the detainees' statements, written, verbal or both
  
• questioning by the "prosecutor" (the "Designated Military Officer") or by the panel of officers making up the Administrative Review Board.

• that the translations were accurate,
  
• that the detainee would naturally try to put the best possible spin on any statement he made,
  
• that the detainee's defense counsel (the "Assisting Military Officer") was acting as a good faith representative of the detainee, and
  
• that the evidence against the detainee (classified and unclassified, referred to but not actually contained in these documents), if unrefuted, would warrant continued detention.

This last point is most important, and means that in the absense of any other evidence my default judgement would be to continue detention.

In matters of national security, I am disposed to believe the prosecution. Sorry, that's just the way it is. I was a soldier, and I had a pretty high level security clearance. If that colors my judgement, so be it.

To the results, then. In short: release nine, detain the remaining twenty-four.

Of the 33 hearings detailed in the document set, in sixteen instances the detainee refused to attend his own hearing or to provide a written statement on his own behalf. Because they refused to defend themselves, I went with the default decision to retain them.

Eight additional detainees who chose to argue their cases I deemed worth keeping at Guantanamo. "Yes, I assaulted the guards here, repeatedly" is not the kind of testimony that is going to put you on the fast track to release. Additionally, a number of the statements of these eight were "internally self-contradictory." Bluntly, their stories were changing from one minute to the next. They were lying.

In nine instances, if there was any credibility whatsoever to the detainee's testimony, release might be warranted. Some say they never fought against US forces, other say they did but were regular soldiers, not Al Qaeda. I gave them every benefit of the doubt, but again it must be emphasized: I have not seen the evidence against them.

The very first transcript I read, for instance, was the hearing of a detainee who was 16 years old when captured. Taken at face value, I thought that would be reason to release him. Reading his statement made me think of the 15- and 16-year-old schoolboys who in 1945 were conscripted into the Volkssturm. But bear in mind: there were also fanatical Hitler Youth members in the Volkssturm.

What I'm really trying to get at here is that without the evidence on both sides, including the classified evidence, it is utterly impossible to make a sound judgement of what the detainee's status ought to be. How the people who conducted the original survey arrived — with any confidence — at the results they achieved by examining these same documents simply beggars imagination.

Over at Captain's Quarters, Captain Ed is looking for assistance in compiling/analyzing data from the Department of Defense's reports on Guantanamo detainees.

Many hands make light work, as they say. Head over to Ed's, read the background, and if you can lend a hand, let him know.

Prof. Rusty Shackleford calls a spade a spade:

You have betrayed America with your perverse love in the exact way that an abusive husband betrays a wife. You are a traitor.

^{[And yes, I am the master of mixed metaphors.]}

Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) made rather a big splash this past week by very publicly "changing" his mind about the course of the war in Iraq — changing it to the same position he's held since last year, if not earlier. We already know this, of course, from a number of reports.

Murtha served honorably in the Marines, initially on active duty, and retiring from the Reserves in 1990, and is often described as a hawkish Democrat.

From the congressman's biography, I note that he has been in the House since 1974. Hmmm.

Murtha had a total of 37 years in the Marines, active and reserve. He had some number of years on active duty — his bio doesn't make it clear, but let's call it 12 years. I have no doubt that his years in uniform were spent completely honorably, and we know he was awarded the Bronze Star for valor during his tour in Vietnam. His service to the country cannot and should not be denigrated.

On the other hand, he has been a full-time Democrat congressman for more than 30 years.

Murtha has spent perhaps twice as much time in a suit as in a uniform. Which wardrobe, do you then suppose, has had more influence on his public pronouncements about the war?

Back in December of 2003, within a week of Saddam Hussein's capture, I wrote a little post about his eventual trial.

The trial has begun, so I thought it might be appropriate to repost the bulk of my thoughts on the matter.

The European chattering classes, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, want Saddam put on trial in some nice neutral place, where the worst that will happen is that he be locked away for life in the latest equivalent of Spandau. I'm sure *spit* Jacques Chirac *spit* would no doubt like to see Saddam held in comfortable house arrest somewhere on the French Riviera, where perhaps they might sometime get together to reminisce about their arms deals and their hatred of Israel. Our Friends The Saudis, who had no qualms about setting up housekeeping for Idi Amin, might even be persuaded to take him in as a retired refugee.

Anything to spare the former dictator from that tres gauche oh-so-American punishment, the death penalty.

Wrong.

Deliberately or otherwise, the EU-UN-weenies miss the point.

Understand this: the purpose of Saddam's trial is not to prove innocence or guilt. Saddam is manifestly guilty. Rather, the purpose will be to lay out the extent of his crimes for all the world to see, to count and put names to the victims, and to show despots the world over what can (and, G-d willing, will) happen to them, too.

Only then will he be hanged, or shot, or beheaded, or stoned, or be thrown off a roof, or whatever other manner of execution might be gleaned from the records kept of his tyranny.

Seriously, does anyone think there is the slightest chance he'd get off on a technicality?

Saddam's guilt is not in question, and frankly, a trial is a courtesy we offer only because we are in fact better than he is. But the result cannot be in doubt, because it is no trial. It is merely the sentencing hearing, with the only thing in question being whether Saddam spends a lifetime in Spandau, or his own personal eternity dangling at the end of a rope.

[Or perhaps *spit* Chirac *spit* would rather he'd had a "Ceaucescu" done on him? That would at least have had the benefit, from the French perspective, of shutting Saddam's mouth.]

The Hague will never have to deign to endure the touch of Saddam's shoes, nor will the ground of Geneva be soiled thereby. The free people of Iraq deserve the privilege of dealing with the monster that ruled over them so bloodily for so long. And they will.

And now, almost two years later, they are.

Ace has more.

(Graphic via A Small Victory)

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission has come out with their final list of recommended closures. North Carolina stands to gain quite a bit by the proposed realignment.

I don't care. Enough already. Stop closing bases we may need in the future. Keeping them open is worth the cost.

Peggy Noonan, as usual, says it best.

Sometimes, it's not all about the money, or shouldn't be.

From my brother's home in Santa Barbara, a rare sight could be seen as the USS Ronald Reagan stopped to pay a visit over the weekend.

[click for larger]

In an e-mail, my sister-in-law notes:

I wanted you to note that the ship is right in the ocean view of our house and it is FANTASTIC!

Real estate in Santa Barbara being what it is, that's probably a million-dollar view on any given day. Throw in a nuclear aircraft carrier, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

The sailors are [superb] and it is great to see them in the downtown of SB. Many of the sailors took a special tour of the Reagan library in Simi Valley - a wonderful library, by the way! There is a lot of activity and excitement at the wharf as people are swarming for a view of the ship. We are glad it harbored here! It is a mile out and still looks huge!

(Apologies to Justin Hayward for using the title of his terrific solo album for the title of this post.)

^{[This post was originally published 21Jun05. Due to the topicality today, I thought I'd bump it up.]
[There are updates - see below.]}

Neat-o. An actual lefty koolaid drinker, right here on my very own site.

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if someone from the anti-American anti-war camp had found this site accidentally — it happens all the time, and some occasionally drop a turd or two in the comments — but this fellow actually came here from my mini-bio page at BlogsForBush. He came here looking for a fight to pick.

As is so often the case with the anti-American anti-war crowd, he rolled out what he thought would be a rhetorical nuke: the tired and discredited "chickenhawk" argument — questioning my "credentials," my qualification to offer opinions about the war. I guess the obvious military theme here escaped his notice, and I called him on it.

Not content to leave well enough alone, however, he decided to leave another steaming pile in the comments. I figured it deserved an up-front response. I know it will fail utterly to convince him, as he apparently arrived at his current opinions shortly before turning off his brain, but a response is nonetheless warranted.

Read on and, as always, feel free to comment.

An observant reader may have gathered from a couple of past entries here that I'm something of a battleship aficionado. The reader would be correct.

Nothing says "are you ready to surrender yet?" like an American battleship showing up on your coastline, ready to begin lobbing 2000-pound shells. Saddam's army learned that lesson in 1991, with whole units surrendering at the sight of the unmanned aerial vehicles used by the battleships for target spotting and fire correction/adjustment. They knew what kind of hell would otherwise have been unleashed on them.

Fandom aside, though, I had thought the day of the battleships' utility in war was over. I assumed that other weapon systems were adequate to the tasks for which the battleship was well-suited. As a stodgy old traditionalist, I hoped the battlewagons could still be useful, but I was not convinced that it could be so.

Oliver North says otherwise:

Sometimes, as I tell my grandchildren, older is better. In the case of the two battlewagons, older is not only superior, it's also a lot less expensive.

Below the fold, another photo from my recent visit to the USS North Carolina.

China rattles the saber:

China has threatened to crush Taiwan at any cost if the island declares independence. The belligerent rhetoric is at the center of a new national defense policy.

Taiwan needs to declare independence? Let's see...

• They have their own constitution.
• They have their own elections.
• They have their own military.
• They make their own treaties.

Seems to me they are already de facto independent. Awfully presumptuous of the Chicoms to tell them otherwise.

The new 85-page defense policy was released Monday and it reinforced Beijing's hard-line stance against Taiwan's independence movement.

The lengthy white paper highlights a series of regional security concerns, including the nuclear arms standoff on the Korean peninsula and a more aggressive Japanese defense policy. But the focus is on silencing Taiwanese calls for independence.

Because only a fool would think that little peaceful Taiwan is more of a threat to China that a North Korean lunatic with nukes.

Hmm....

Actually, the idea that some Chinese would refuse to be crushed under the tank treads of the People's "Liberation" Army would be more threatening to Mao's heirs. They seem to have no qualms about their people dying by the millions, whereas the prospect of a few million Chinese people refusing to kowtow to Beijing — and giving their mainland cousins dangerous ideas — must really frighten them.

The paper describes cross-strait relations as grim and says the Chinese army has a sacred responsibility to crush Taiwan if it declares independence.

Remember the Tiananmen Square massacre?

The paper also blasts U.S. policy toward Taiwan, especially its weapons sales to Taipei.

Professor Arthur Ding follows cross-strait relations for the National Chengchi University in Taiwan. He says Beijing's tough rhetoric is in part a reaction to a small group of Chinese hard-liners pushing for a confrontation with Taipei.

The dinosaurs died 65 million years ago, but the communist hard-liners live on.

"The Chinese government is doing something proactively to diffuse growing pressure in Beijing," he said.

Mass resignations and suicides of the ruling elite would be a simpler solution.

I've long and often said that the United States would be in a shooting war with China sometime in the rapidly approaching future. This story would seem to indicate an accelleration in the approach of that future.

The People's Republic of China is an enemy of everything this country, at its heart, stands for. It's high time those in positions of power in this country recognize that fact.

[Read the rest of the story, courtesy of Voice of America.]

Today is Pearl Harbor Day.

This is the battleship U.S.S. Arizona in the 1930s:

And this is the U.S.S. Arizona and 1177 of her crew today:

It would behoove our enemies — actual and potential — to realize that when the United States went to war after an unprovoked attack in 1941, it ended in fire.

America has a long memory.

More from:
Silent Running,
Instapunk,
Michelle Malkin,
Florida Cracker,
Mamamontezz,
Rooftop Report,
Poliblog,
Backcountry Conservative,
Flynn Files,
Shot in the Dark,
Power Line,
Castle Argghhh!,
Outside the Beltway,
The Commisar (and here),
Val Prieto.

_{[This post is a slightly-edited repeat of last year's Pearl Harbor post.]}

A fellow Loyal Citizen, Spence, has two brothers serving in Iraq, one of whom was seriously wounded by mortar fire yesterday.

After the initial emergency surgery, he is being evacuated to Germany; his parents will be flying there shortly.

Please keep Lance Corporal Kyle Renehan, USMC, and his family in your prayers.

Although I'm an Army veteran — and proud of it! — sometimes I wish I'd been a Marine.

"Happy Birthday, Marines. Semper Fidelis, and Keep Attacking!"

I always thought the naming of military operations was something of a minor art form. Once upon a time, names were made up on the spot by a commander or one of his staff officers.

• "Overlord" — the D-Day invasion of France. The all-time classic name.
• "Torch" — the invasion of North Africa in 1943 (during which many Vichy French soldiers surrendered or assumed room temperature) which ultimately helped defeat Rommel's vaunted Afrika Korps.
• "Market-Garden" — the airborne invasion of Holland depicted in the film A Bridge Too Far.
• "Urgent Fury" — the invasion of Grenada.
• "Tidal Wave" — the bombing of oil refineries in and around Ploesti, Romania in August of 1943.

["Tidal Wave" is my all-time favorite-to-study combat mission in all of history. 178 B-24 "Liberator" heavy bombers flew at tree-top level, right into the muzzles of the flak cannons, in an attempt to destroy a portion of Germany's oil-refining capability. Such courage is hard to fathom. 30% of the aircraft were lost, and the aircrews suffered 55% casualties. Five Medals of Honor were awarded for the mission, three posthumously. And I'll bet a dollar that you never even heard of it before now.]

Later, names were made by pulling two random words from a sort of operation name generator book. Now I suppose they're generated by a computer.

The point of an operation name wasn't to have something catchy for the press release. OPSEC — Operations Security — was not something to be taken lightly. The name of an operation was thus supposed to be a reference term that would not give away the objective of the operation. A hypothetical German agent in 1944 London overhearing the phrase "Operation Overlord" would have had no idea to what it referred.

Then came the era of Pentagon press awareness. Suddenly, the name of an operation was not a trivia item to be memorized by bored high school history students 30 years later, it became the chapter name for textbooks yet to be written.

• "Just Cause" — Panama.
• "Desert Shield / Desert Storm" — duh.
• "Iraqi Freedom" — biggest duh of them all.

The Pentagon really needs to fire the staffer who came up with "Operation Iraqi Freedom." "Operation Sleepy Weasel" would have been a more OPSEC-conscious name.

And today begins "Phantom Fury," the taking of Fallujah. Sanity appears to have returned to the Operations staff, as far as naming operations goes. It sure beats "Operation Urban Brawl" or "Operation Take Fallujah." And three or four months ago, when planning for Phantom Fury began, the name would have given no indication of intent to any possible eavesdroppers.

As a side note: a number of years ago the Pentagon decided that frivolous or non-serious names were inappropriate. Indeed. Good men were and are killed on these operations. No one wants to hear that their son has died in action, and it would be an outrage to tell parents that their son had died in "Operation Fluffy Bunny."

Late, late update – 12Aug2005: John at Castle Argghhh! goes into much greater detail on the topic. Definitely recommended reading.

Hoo-AH!!!

Sgt. Hook is soon to be Sergeant Major Hook. Good things do happen to good men.

On various blogs, such as INDC Journal, I've recently seen AP photos of a theatre marquee in the "Little Kabul" section of Fremont, CA.

The Associated Press must be a bit slow these days. I blogged a picture (taken by a correspondent of mine) of the same theatre, with a slightly different message on the marquee, back in June.

Why do we need the AP at all, when there are thousands of "reporters" out there with digital cameras and IP addresses? For an air of respectability? Heck, I lost my respect for the MSM long ago.

Maybe we need them as a "distribution channel" — an index, of sorts — for the news. Well, heck, I read Instapundit (for example) every day.

Alan at the Command Post had a few thoughts on the matter, delivered in person to the AP managing editors, but worth a read by anyone interested in news.

Folks, THIS is what it's all about — an Afghan woman votes for the first time:

(Picture shamelessly stolen from Bill @ INDC Journal, who also comments on the tremendous victory of a key ally in the War on Terrorism.)

Bill Whittle has a new essay. It's pure Whittle, and it's a winner.

It would be nice to live in a world full of liberals. I say that as a staunch conservative. It would be nice to live in a world that behaved like a Hollywood party or a university campus, filled with kind, educated people with lots to lose, who cherish reason and responsibility and are incapable of brutal, violent acts. If all the world were filled with decent, compassionate, rational people, life would be a bouquet.

But it’s not. There are bad people who do bad things, and there are bad countries run by bad people who do bad things who eat the kind and gentle people for breakfast. There is no denying this. Therefore, liberals are insane.

It’s a damn shame, it really is.

You are required to read The whole thing: DETERRENCE, Part 1 and Part 2. (Or just go here and start reading from the top down.)

Command Sergeant Major Phillip Shriver:

Drop and give me 20.

(as reported by the Army News Service.)

Honorary CSM Shriver is 7 years old.

Link via Blackfive. Read the whole thing, and marvel at the love a kid can have for soldiers — and vice-versa.

... is my enemy.

[Italian diplomats] say that France's intelligence services used an Italian-born middle-man to circulate a mixture of genuine and bogus documents to "trap" the two leading proponents of war with Saddam into making unsupportable claims.

Golly... I wonder why?

According to an account given to The Sunday Telegraph, France was driven by "a cold desire to protect their privileged, dominant trading relationship with Saddam, which in the case of war would have been at risk".

I'll bet the folks in the prosecutor's office of the International Criminal Court would like to have a chat with Jacques Chirac and Dominique DeVillepan (who is a man).

Oh. No, I guess they wouldn't.

Via Mr. Minority.

At Command Post, a timeline of the terrorist atrocity in Russia.

They killed over a hundred kids. Blew them up. Shot them in the back as they fled.

As for the terrorists and their supporters... I'm not in the "kill them all — let God sort them out" camp, but I'm more inclined than ever to keep directions to the campground handy.

I've already thown up enough in the last 24 hours. If I hadn't, I'd be likely to take David Kaspar's advice.

(Via Glenn, who has a roundup on the Russian situation.)

Western nations have been assaulted by the forces of a radical ideology, bent on conquest.

They have struck at the leading nation of the West, and have voiced their desire to conquer, enslave and convert the world. They mean it. They have thousands of willing servants, while the nations of the West are divided and bickering.

France [*spit*] has allied itself with the enemies of the West.

One man, though, has seen the danger and has acted to stop it. He built a coalition. Coalition troops have gone off to the field of battle and have been victorious.

Thus we have a brief summary of the world today.

Right? Yes, indeed it is.

But...

I'm re-reading one of my favorite books, Men of War, the second volume of the There Will Be War series edited (and in large part written) by Jerry Pournelle. Dr. Pournelle is more than a "mere" science fiction author — he's also a respected academic with a large body of work to his credit, including a key role in the formulation of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Now out of print, but still available through used-book outlets, the book consists of non-fiction essays and short fiction stories, and was published at a time when the Soviet danger was at or near its maximum. Twenty years later, it is fascinating to read what some very smart people had to say about the nature of threats against us. Take, for example, the following passages, written by Dr. Stefan Possony in 1968 about "Technological War":

The United States is at war.... Except for financial sacrifices, many citizens of the West and subjects of Communism may be unaware of the conflict until the decisive moment, if it ever comes, is upon them. For all that, the Technological War is most real, and we must understand its nature, for it is decisive. Our survival depends on our not losing this battle.

The nature of both technology and the enemy dictate this state of warfare. The U.S.S.R. is a power-oriented dictatorship, whose official doctrine is Communism: that is, a chiliastic movement which seeks to liberate — we would say enslave — the entire earth.

Written in '68, but sounds familiar, no? For "communism" substitute "Islamofascism," and for "U.S.S.R." substitute "Muslim part of the world" or "caliphate" or the synonym of your choice.

We can be thankful, at least, that major new technologies are not being developed by our current enemies, though they are perfectly happy to use our technology when they can get it. What we do have to worry about, however, is new methodologies used to employ old technology.

They can't build airliners — they can only crash them into targets, but that's bad enough.

Further along, we read:

Moreover, aggressive actions may occur because of internal pressures, especially in a period when faith in Communism as an ideological system is declining, and it is possible, though unlikely, that aggressive initiatives will be taken by non-Communist states. Despite all those implications the U.S.S.R. is the single most important and strongest opponent of the United States. Consequently, American strategists must primarily be concerned with Soviet strategy and the threat posed by the U.S.S.R.

In my humble estimation, I think this paragraph would apply equally to Islamofascism and to the Peoples' Republic of China. China is a threat — and they are investing heavily in technology. Thus far they've mainly stolen it (for example, see the recently settled Cisco Systems lawsuit against Huawei) but in short order, they will be developing new technologies to compete with and ultimately defeat the West.

[I've often said that I think we'll be in a shooting war with China in the not too distant future — I started, ten or fifteen years ago, by suggesting 2025 as a "due date," but I'm now less optimistic about the number of years we have remaining. Thanks a lot, Clinton & Schwartz. Bastards.]

It must be emphasized that to the committed Communist, there are no ideological reasons for not exploiting advantages over the capitalists. The only possible objections are operational. No communist can admit that a capitalist government is legitimate; thus there can be no "mercy" to a vulnerable capitalist regime.

Again, this applies rather accurately to the current state of Islamic radicalism. Our governments, institutions and religions are, to their way of thinking, illegitimate. The only options they leave for us to choose from are death, dhimmitude, or victory.

The entire essay (more precisely, a chapter from the book The Strategy of Technology) is well worth reading, but may be difficult to acquire. Fortunately, an updated edition of the complete book is available online at Dr. Pournelle's site. This is not light reading, folks. But valuable, very valuable.

Apropos of my previous post....

In the year(+) since I began this blog over, I've encountered more former (and current) military linguists than I had in the decade(+) since I left the service in 1992. There are even several that I know of in my blogrolls. (Here, here, here and here.) (And here.)

Nathan over at Brain Fertilizer has a great idea for an alliance of military linguists.

How very cunning of him.

If you are a member of that elite club, go and drop him a comment. I'm going to try my mad photoshopping skills and see if I can come up with a logo and/or button graphic.

Stephen, the VodkaPundit, points out one of the major problems likely to be problematic for our collection of electronic and communication intelligence: the sheer rate and volume of potential "target" traffic in an age of e-mail, cell- and sat-phones, and cheap encryption.

He then asks:

Would any readers with actual signals intelligence experience like to weigh in on this, in a strictly unclassified manner?

This is somewhat tangential to the issue raised, and I may ramble a bit - there's a lot of ground to cover and I'm writing "off the cuff," so to speak. And I'm long-winded. And I'm not going to be able to address, even in an unclassified manner, all the possible things pertaining to Electronic Warfare and Signal Intelligence — there's just too much ground to cover.

As I think I've mentioned once or twice here, I was an Electronic Warfare/Signal Intelligence (EW/SIGINT) Voice Intercept Operator (Korean), Army MOS 98G, from '86 to '92, rising to the lofty and exalted rank of Sergeant before being sidelined by a back injury. [sigh.]

Stephen, as noted above, points out what must be a serious problem for the SIGINT community — the volume of traffic and the methods of transmission now available would appear to combine in such a way that "sorting the wheat from the chaff" is at the very least an order of magnitude harder than it was even a decade ago.

My experience is over a decade ago, but I think I can surmise that there are almost certainly plenty of methods that our guys can and do use to "sniff" the new transmission media, but once you have what you think is a kernel of wheat, you probably still have to decrypt it.

I worked in the radio jamming and intercept arena at the battlefield tactical level. [Note the name of this blog, eh?] I expect that things at the "tactical" level haven't changed quite as much as at the "strategic" level, except that radio signal encryption technology has probably become more widespread. [When I was in the Army, we had a near-monopoly on battlefield radio encryption - now it's much cheaper and easier.] Add frequency-hopping to the mix, and you have real problems if you're the intercepter.

To counter this, one of the missions of the EW side of the business is to screw with the bad guys' commo to the point where they have to transmit "in the clear," perhaps sending a message more than once, in order to get the message through.

Jamming, as a method of screwing with the bad guys, had three main tactics in my day, two of which were common, and one pretty difficult and rare. I imagine things haven't changed altogether too much in the intervening years.

The first (and the one that springs to most peoples' minds when you say "jamming") is to simply deny the use of a method of communication to the enemy. For instance, if you know that an enemy infantry division is using a certain set of radio frequencies for their command and control, you could simply blanket that particular radio frequency band with so much noise that no one can communicate at all. In the realm of internet communication, I suppose that would be analogous to flooding T1 lines (etc.) with random bits.

The effect of this is to force the enemy to use other (and, theoretically, less secure and effective) methods of communication, which would hamper their operations and make them more likely to be intercepted.

The second method, more devious, would be to try to screw with the enemy just enough that they have to either transmit the same information over and over, or so that they drop whatever encryption protocol that might be in place - making it more likely to be successfully intercepted. This is also effective it your colleagues on the intercept side of the business are trying to get a Direction Finding "fix" on the transmitter location for potential targeting: more transmissions means a better "fix" on the enemy location.

I suppose an internet analogy would be to "flip" a few bits in an encrypted e-mail so that the receiver knows he has received an e-mail, but that it's been garbled. He will either have to have it re-sent, or perhaps will drop the encryption altogether, if it's believed that the encryption is the problem. Or he may just pick up the phone. In any case, interception could be more likely.

A third, most devious method, is what is called "Imitative Communication Deception" - pretending to be one of the enemy. This is the most difficult thing I can think of at the moment, and it probably would not work if the two communicating parties know each other... but it can work well on the battlefield, where the people talking to each other on the radio often do NOT know each other well enough to recognize an imposter. But you need superior language skills to pull this one off. I was never that good a linguist.

I haven't even really touched much on the "Intercept" side of the SIGINT world yet, but that's all I have the time to write at the moment (Real Life intrudes yet again). Feel free to comment — I will try to answer any questions.

It seems like every day on the news, someone from the House or Senate is being asked their opinion on matters of national security and intelligence, e.g., the 9/11 commission.

It is remarkably rare that I ever think any of our elected representatives knows as much or more than I do about how intel works, and in almost all cases, their public pronouncements are designed for political effect rather than to convey the truth.

I am certain that virtually no one in the media understands how intel works. Of those who do, most simply don't care, or (worse) they play on the ignorance of politicians and the public when publishing their "news" in order to push a particular agenda. Case in point: the media, in lockstep, completely and uniformly mischaracterized the preliminary report from the 9/11 commission.

I expect the Senate Select Intelligence Committee report on pre-Iraq-War intelligence being released today will be more of the same — a kernel of truth, surrounded by a cocoon of spin, particularly by those who don't like the report's conclusions.

Yes, I know a thing or three about intelligence.

I was once a small cog in the military intelligence machine. I had to be smart enough and had to pass tests to to qualify for the training, had to go through a couple years of extremely specialized schooling, and had to undergo a long bout of rectal microscopy to get a security clearance.

I don't think even 5% of our national-level politicians could successfully get even that far. And all that was what had to be done before I could serve my country in the real world. The hard work came after the training.

Politicians, on the other hand, only have to win their periodic popularity contests.

But I'm reasonably confident I couldn't do that.

Update: did you see Senator Rockefeller at the news conference? That's what I mean by spin: taking basic facts and overlaying your own veneer of opinion to try to score political points.

Having myself been a ROTC cadet for a couple years in college, and having been in the service for a number of years, I know that some day I might hear of the loss of one of my old friends.

Bill of INDC Journal has posted about an old friend of his who was recently killed in Afghanistan.

Captain Dan Eggers left behind a wife and two young children. They could use your support.

One of the Supreme Court decisions handed down today was for the case of Hamdi v Rumsfeld.

The question in the Hamdi case was "how do we treat American citizens in wartime?"

The question should have been "why do we treat Hamdi as a citizen in the first place?"

Clearly, it is past time to rethink the way in which the 14th Amendment is applied. Being born within the borders of the US should not, by itself, be the sole criterion for citizenship.

One of the folks I receive e-mail from, on one of the many mailing lists to which I am subscribed, sent this:

Attached is a photo I took a couple of weeks ago of a movie theater in Fremont [California]. You may know that Fremont has the largest single population of Afghani people outside of Afghanistan.

(Click to view larger image)

He concludes:

You won't see this one on the news.

To: Islamofascist goat-rapers, camel-lovers and paederasts
Re: the murder of Paul Johnson

Apparently you either did not receive or you failed to read my previous memo. I suspect the latter, as your education — such as it is — has obviously left much to be desired.

Either way, you just don't get it.

We as a nation can sustain many individual murders. Each is a tragedy for the family involved. And yet we continue to hold ourselves back from unleashing our full fury. We can still afford to.

But, as I have noted before, our forbearance will not last forever.

Understand me, here: we American people will not long restrain our wrath. It will not take many more such incidents before we will demand that our forces, either military or covert, begin to exact a toll against you that you will not be able to pay but once and for all time.

The manner and method of our response will be of our choosing. You have no say whatsoever in the matter. Continue on the path you are on, and it will not be long before all the things you accuse us of will actually begin to happen.

Your homelands will feel the tread of American boots.

Your families will receive visits by armed men in the middle of the night.

Your homes will be destroyed and your fields sown with salt.

Your governments will be replaced.

You and your comrades, when taken alive, will receive the treatment accorded by the laws of war: interrogation followed by summary execution.

Our mercy and compassion will be reserved only for the children. Our children and, yes, yours. Our future generations. But your children will not be allowed to follow in your ways. You will have no posterity.

And that's if we are successful. If we are unsuccessful, your dreams of a new Caliphate will end in fire.

It's you versus us. We choose us.

Update: an excellent summation at XRLQ.

Update 2: Jeff reports that the perp and a pair of his fellow thugs have been killed. Three down, several hundred thousand (?) to go.

There have been many excellent things you should read (or which ought to be re-read) for Memorial Day this year.

John of Castle Argghhh!!! has the tale of a young Lieutenant's final homecoming in Memorial Day 2004.

BlackFive notes Memorial Day - Marine Lance Corporal Andrew Zabierek - Never Forgotten. Also see Taking Chance Home, and indeed, his entire Bonds That Shall Never Be Broken archive.
He has more here and here, too.

The DoggerelPundit surpasses himself with Elements of Chance. Don't miss this one, folks.

Citizen Smash (the Indepundit) asks: "What does Memorial Day mean to you?"

Jen Martinez posts A Time To Remember. Also see In Memoriam.

Rhesa at Creative Slips has a photo you should see.

The Emigre with a Digital Cluebat follows up on a BlackFive post.

Donnah, the Florida Cracker, on Honor and Glory. See also this post.

Jeff Jarvis on what we fight against.

Stephen Den Beste's piece on the price of heroism is a must-read.

Lots of people have been pointing to this video tribute.

Val Prieto on weekend plans.

Command Post readers will be telling their stories.

Over at PowerLine is "Memorial and Remonstrance."

Mostly Cajun has family remembrances and more. (If the link doesn't work, scroll down to "Memorial Day.")

At National Review Online, James Robbins writes "Recognizing Heroes."

Also at NRO, Kate O'Beirne tells us about The Soldiers You Never Hear About.

Townhall.com republishes President Reagan's remarks given at Normandy on the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

Oliver North on Memorial Day, Then and Now.

Jim of Smoke On The Water gives us For Love Of Country.

J.R. has A Memorial Day Tribute.

Beck at Incite posts his Memorial Day Memories.

Emperor Misha I comments on a recent story of selfless and heroic sacrifice. And don't miss this post.

Cox & Forkum: Futures.

Brilliant as always is Mark Steyn.

James Joyner of Outside the Beltway has a wrap-up of WWII Memorial dedication coverage.

Jim of Parkway Rest Stop advises us to take a minute.

Windrider posts photos from the WWII Memorial at Silent Running.

AnalogKid at Random Nuclear Strikes has a photo essay, as well.

Ith at Absinthe & Cookies has a photo and a prayer., and follows with her comments on the National Memorial Day concert.

Ptah at Crusader War College reminds us that the living deserve thanks, too.

So does Susanna at Cut on the Bias, here. She has this post with photos, too.

Jeff of Alphecca has photos from Arlington.

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds has some links you should see.

The Mudville Gazette has another collection of links from milbloggers.

Moe at Occam's Toothbrush gets right to the point.

Aaron of Pardon My English has some thoughts.

Sgt Hook, currently serving in Afghanistan, has a list.

Tom Paine of Silent Running has stories.

Eric at Who Tends The Fires posts "The Holiday That Gets Forgotten." [Not if I have anything to say about it, it won't - Russ]

At Random Numbers, on heroes.

Dean Esmay has a number of posts. Just click and start reading.

Jeff the Backcountry Conservative posts about a Medal of Honor recipient. He, too, has collected a lot of links, which I will not try to duplicate here.

Pudge at Right Wingin' It says "remember to remember."

John of Balloon Juice presents us with a list.

Frank J. of IMAO fame gets uncharacteristically serious.

Kim du Toit remembers one particular man.

SlagleRock offers some personal observations.

Jeff Goldstein of protein wisdom talks back.

Serenity salutes.

Stephen Green, VodkaPundit, recalls a speech.

Matt at Stars n Stripes posts a followup news item about one example of America's best.

Candy at Candy Universe has her thoughts for the day.

Joe at Cold Fury notes his family's record of service.

[I'm done searching for links to add to this post. However, if you see something that ought to be here but isn't, please let me know - Russ]

John of Castle Argghhh has posted.. well, my words aren't enough.

Read it.

And remember.

If you're not already reading every word written by the DoggerelPundit, shame on you.

Then how are we to take the measure say,
When Tillman, Chance, or Dunham—others fall.
Why, see them as they are! they willing weigh
Their measure, simply said, at all for all.

Outside them, never shortage drought or dearth
Of disaffected, boasting pained complaint.
Yea, betters show us duty on this earth,
And some are something very near a saint.

Though Heroes live and die to scattered care,
There’s honor understanding honor’s guard.
Reflect and ponder; who is willing there
And why, it is so quiet in your yard.

Stephen Den Beste writes about the film Battle of Britain. Not a review of the film, as such, nor of the DVD (as I did last August). No, he writes the sort of review I wish I'd written.

It's about why men fight, and about heroes:

Real heroes feel pride, but it is not pride in being an unusual man, better than those around him. Far more often it is pride in having been part of an unusual group. If you press them, you'll find that they will say that their fellows were better than they were. They will brag about the achievements of other men they served with, but will downplay their own.