Here is a great blog that I stumbled on (thanks to my friend John Little at Blogs of War and Chronicles of War).  The name of the blog is CPT Knighthawk, and his most recent post is entitled Will it Hold.  By the looks of it, Captain Knighthawk is saying in his own way, the same thing that I have been saying in my own way, and the same thing that many of us have been saying in our own way: A little faster … please!

Why do I bring this up?  Because it is nice to know that my musings have not been too terribly far off.  They are too similar to a man who is over there in the middle of it.

At any rate, I will add this link to my blogroll and visit it regularly.

Godspeed to all of our men and women who are deployed.

My son’s billet has been decided (of course, as I am told by him, everything is subject to change at any time for any reason).  But as of right now, he is the SAW operator (Squad Automatic Weapon).  You can read about it at USMCWeapons.com and at Answers.com.  He functions as the SAW gunner for his fire team.  You can read about the fire team at Wikipedia.  His description of Squad rushes for 6000 meters on a Friday afternoon in 90 degree F weather makes me glad that I sit behind a desk.

So now rather than just carry 40 lbs of body armor and a 100 lb backpack, he has to tote another 25-30 lbs depending on the amount of ammunition he has.

When he gets to come home on the weekends he is very tired.  The Sergeant Major is an inspiration to him, though.  Much older than the young Marines, all of the young ones have trouble keeping the pace he sets on “humps.”

Daniel asks for prayer regularly.

My son’s billet has been decided (of course, as I am told by him, everything is subject to change at any time for any reason).  But as of right now, he is the SAW operator (Squad Automatic Weapon).  You can read about it at USMCWeapons.com and at Answers.com.  He functions as the SAW gunner for his fire team.  You can read about the fire team at Wikipedia.  His description of Squad rushes for 6000 meters on a Friday afternoon in 90 degree F weather makes me glad that I sit behind a desk.

So now rather than just carry 40 lbs of body armor and a 100 lb backpack, he has to tote another 25-30 lbs depending on the amount of ammunition he has.

When he gets to come home on the weekends he is very tired.  The Sergeant Major is an inspiration to him, though.  Much older than the young Marines, all of the young ones have trouble keeping the pace he sets on “humps.”

Daniel asks for prayer regularly.

I have always looked at the TSA with some degree of loathing, for reasons that would be too many to innumerate here (including but not limited to: (a) it was at one time run by the pitiful Norman Maneta, (b) it is a government agency when it should have been privatized, (c) the times that I have seen them in action them seem to show little regard for true risks and favor busy-work, and (d) anyone who asks a little old Caucasian lady with a walking cane to disrobe or take her shoes off should be whipped and excluded from contributing to the gene pool of the country rather than given a job.  Yes, I have seen a TSA employee search a little old white lady with a walking stick.).

Now I have found the best reason of all of loath the TSA.  Our friend Oak Leaf over at Polipundit has a post on the TSA searching men and women in uniform, and cites a commentary at the Orlando Sentinel:

A little-known fact about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the U.S. military requires soldiers to travel in uniform from theater. An even lesser known fact is that the Transportation Security Administration aggressively targets war veterans as they travel home to their loved ones.

At Baltimore’s airport on my way back to Orlando from Iraq, there were about 50 soldiers in line, waiting to be cleared by TSA. I noticed soldiers taking off clothing, and then they assumed the position so commonly seen in police-chase videos, arms and legs spread wide as a screener passed a wand close to their bodies. Soldiers were asked to remove belts, boots and shirts, and their carry-on bags were ransacked.

“We’re fighting a war. Do you guys think we’re a threat?” I asked as I spread my legs and arms.

The screener replied, “I dunno,” and kept his wand in motion.

There you have it.  Your tax dollars going to perform meaningless and silly busy-work intended to embarrass your men and women in uniform rather than decrease the collective risk to our country.

There it is again ringing in my ears: “I dunno.”  Someone whip that jackass, please?

But Oak Leaf has a solution for it: the registered traveler program.  Go check it out at Polipundit.

Reuters is reporting:

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) – The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency has begun working with Israel to help find ways to counter enemy rockets, a much shorter-range threat than the “Star Wars” mission to block ballistic missiles for which is it known, the head of the agency said on Tuesday.

[ … ]

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency grew out of the so-called “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative launched by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1983. It is building a multibillion-dollar shield designed to thwart all classes and ranges of incoming ballistic missiles.

The United States has a long history of high-tech joint projects with Israel, including co-development of the Arrow, the system Israel has deployed to defend against short- and medium-range missiles.

Until now, the Missile Defense Agency — noted for its work on layered defense against intercontinental missiles — has not been known to be involved in addressing the rocket threat to Israel from Lebanon’s Hizbollah fighters.

Israel’s defense ministry recently asked the Pentagon for information about a next-generation chemical-laser system for intercepting short-range Katushya and Kassam rockets, Globes Online, an online publication, reported on Sunday.

The system at issue, called Skyguard, is built by Northrop Grumman Corp. and based on a tactical high-energy laser the company co-developed with the Israeli army in the 1990s. Northrop, based in Los Angeles, had no immediate comment.

If I am not mistaken, this is the THEL (Tactical High Energy Laser) that I reported on in my post “Moral Asymmetry in Warfare: Israel and Hezbollah.”  Information on it can be found here at directed energy weapons.  You know the story?  For lack of a nail, a horseshoe was lost.  For lack of a horse, a captain was lost.  For lack of a captain, an army was lost …

Or so goes the little story … I forget the exact details and genesis of the parable.

It would seem that THEL was important enough to fund after all.

Defense Tech has an interesting post that links the latest Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker, entitled “Watching Lebanon: Washington’s Interests in Israel’s War.”  Seymour Hersh has always made extensive use of “un-named sources” for his articles, so what he says must be objectively analyzed and taken with the proverbial “grain of salt.”  But if we can get past this issue of sourcing his articles for a minute and think about the contents of his article, there might be useful insights to be gained.  I consider this scenario to be plausible.  Let’s look at what Hersh said (in part):

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

Israeli military and intelligence experts I spoke to emphasized that the country’s immediate security issues were reason enough to confront Hezbollah, regardless of what the Bush Administration wanted. Shabtai Shavit, a national-security adviser to the Knesset who headed the Mossad, Israel’s foreign-intelligence service, from 1989 to 1996, told me, “We do what we think is best for us, and if it happens to meet America’s requirements, that’s just part of a relationship between two friends. Hezbollah is armed to the teeth and trained in the most advanced technology of guerrilla warfare. It was just a matter of time. We had to address it.

In my post “Michael Chertoff: Tender your Resignation,” I discussed the eleven Egyptian students who went missing upon entry into the U.S., and Chertoff’s pathetic reaction to it: ” … just a bunch of kids who cut class.”

Chertoff proved himself to be a simpleton and a trivial lightweight, and incapable of handling the job of chief of Homeland Security.  I said this prior to finding out what these “kids” were up to, since the issue was not what actually happened to them, but rather, the posture that the U.S. government should take on such things.

Debbie Schlussel has been following these “kids cutting class.”  As it turns out, some of them turned up as “employees” of a pizza shop in Baltimore.  This pizza shop has ties to terrorist activities:

Last October, when officials closed down the Baltimore Fort McHenry and Harbor Tunnels because of an alleged terror plot to blow it up, they arrested several men in connection with the alleged plot on immigration violations. Some of them had maps of the tunnels, etc. Guess where they arrested two of them? Safa Pizza.

From Montana State University to a pizza shop in Baltimore with terrorist ties.  Does this sound strange to anyone?  If Chertoff had his way, these people would have been regarded as “just a bunch of kids who cut class.”

Again: Michael Chertoff — Tender your Resignation!  Please allow a more serious person to take over at DHS.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Ehud Olmert told the members of the Knesset that the:

“… UN Security Council Resolution 1701 “will change fundamentally our strategic situation on the northern border.”

Good grief.  Let me be as clear about this as I can.  UN Security Council resolution 1701 will change nothing as regards the strategic position on the northern border except to give Hezbollah a reprieve to re-arm and re-group.  Benjamin Netanyahu was on point with his retort:

“The [kidnapped] soldiers weren’t returned home, the Hizbullah was not disarmed … Right now, we are [merely] in an interim period between wars,” Netanyahu warned. “And there is no one who will prevent our enemies from rearmed and preparing for the next round.” 

I am growing weary of the silly language being used to describe the state of affairs.  The phrase “cessation of hostilities” is used to denote stopping combat with the enemy, and “crisis” is used to denote the war.  Israel is at war with its enemies.  This is not a “crisis” in which there are “hostilities.”

I was listening to a news commantator who was discussing the “cessation of hostilities,” which is [according to this commentator] “what we all want to see.”

Where did this person get the notion that we all want to see the cessation of hostilities?  I don’t.  I have called for the absolute destruction of Hezbollah, the assassination of Nasrallah, and attack of Hezbollah by the U.S. Marines.

Given the following circumstances:

• An enemy that has sworn the genocide of your race.
• Stopping the war gives Hezbollah a chance to re-arm and re-group.
• Stopping the war gives Hezbollah an opportunity to claim victory and hence become stronger in Lebanon.

 … the question then logically follows.  Can anyone give me a single good reason for a “cessation of hostilities?”

Oh, and in the shocker of the day, Hezbollah told the Lebanese army to pound sand.  The Australian is reporting (hat tip Michelle Malkin’s web site – Karol Sheinin):

Is was supposed to be the day the maligned Lebanese army took control of the country’s borders and policed the UN ceasefire.

Instead, the military commanders were left humiliated and troops stranded as Hezbollah told them not to disarm its fighters.

The first infantry units were preparing to head south when Hezbollah showed who controls the area by announcing it would not surrender its weapons.

General Michel Sleiman, commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army, and his lieutenants had been invited to join cabinet meetings to finalise plans to deploy the 15,000-strong force south of the Litani River.

But they were lectured by Hezbollah’s two ministers in the coalition Government on what the army could and could not do.

And so continues the “cessation” of “hostilities” brokered by the UN under the rubric of a “ceasefire.”

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Ehud Olmert told the members of the Knesset that the:

“… UN Security Council Resolution 1701 “will change fundamentally our strategic situation on the northern border.”

Good grief.  Let me be as clear about this as I can.  UN Security Council resolution 1701 will change nothing as regards the strategic position on the northern border except to give Hezbollah a reprieve to re-arm and re-group.  Benjamin Netanyahu was on point with his retort:

“The [kidnapped] soldiers weren’t returned home, the Hizbullah was not disarmed … Right now, we are [merely] in an interim period between wars,” Netanyahu warned. “And there is no one who will prevent our enemies from rearmed and preparing for the next round.” 

I am growing weary of the silly language being used to describe the state of affairs.  The phrase “cessation of hostilities” is used to denote stopping combat with the enemy, and “crisis” is used to denote the war.  Israel is at war with its enemies.  This is not a “crisis” in which there are “hostilities.”

I was listening to a news commantator who was discussing the “cessation of hostilities,” which is [according to this commentator] “what we all want to see.”

Where did this person get the notion that we all want to see the cessation of hostilities?  I don’t.  I have called for the absolute destruction of Hezbollah, the assassination of Nasrallah, and attack of Hezbollah by the U.S. Marines.

Given the following circumstances:

• An enemy that has sworn the genocide of your race.
• Stopping the war gives Hezbollah a chance to re-arm and re-group.
• Stopping the war gives Hezbollah an opportunity to claim victory and hence become stronger in Lebanon.

 … the question then logically follows.  Can anyone give me a single good reason for a “cessation of hostilities?”

Oh, and in the shocker of the day, Hezbollah told the Lebanese army to pound sand.  The Australian is reporting (hat tip Michelle Malkin’s web site – Karol Sheinin):

Is was supposed to be the day the maligned Lebanese army took control of the country’s borders and policed the UN ceasefire.

Instead, the military commanders were left humiliated and troops stranded as Hezbollah told them not to disarm its fighters.

The first infantry units were preparing to head south when Hezbollah showed who controls the area by announcing it would not surrender its weapons.

General Michel Sleiman, commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army, and his lieutenants had been invited to join cabinet meetings to finalise plans to deploy the 15,000-strong force south of the Litani River.

But they were lectured by Hezbollah’s two ministers in the coalition Government on what the army could and could not do.

And so continues the “cessation” of “hostilities” brokered by the UN under the rubric of a “ceasefire.”

Based on my discussions with certain Marines, it would appear that there isn’t a Marine at Camp Lejeune who doesn’t want to go to war with the forces of Hezbollah.  You remember, don’t you?  There is unfinished business with Hezbollah.  They were responsible for the deaths of 220 Marines in what would become the worst day for the Marines since Iwo Jima.

Payback was never allowed.  Reagan asked for a military plan, but before it could be implemented, the pitiful Caspar Weinberger called it off for fear that it would “hurt” relations between the U.S. and the Arab world.  So began the notion of winning a war in the Middle East by winning friends and engaging in talky-talk.

So payback is still waiting.  The Marines believe that Israel is currently trying to fight a war that the U.S. Marines should be fighting, and they aren’t even being allowed to do that by the State Department (you know, at the behest of the pitiful Condi?).

So when will payback occur?  Why not unleash the U.S. Marines on Hezbollah.  Let’s watch payback happen “Marines-style!”  The war will be dramatic and over very quickly.  And Hezbollah will be no more.  Problem gone.