Articles by Herschel Smith

Courtesy of LGF, here is Ahmadinejad on the future of U.S.-Iranian relations:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: When they talk about a “New Middle East,

Hat tip to my friend Knighthawk at Polipundit, this from USA Today:

“I am shocked,” said Jürgen Lesch, 56, a Dresden software developer. “Now it looks like terrorism has reached us, as well.”

Germany’s refusal to take part in the U.S.-led war in Iraq once had Germans thinking Islamic terrorists would focus elsewhere, said Lesch’s wife, Marita, 52, a teacher. “We didn’t fight in Iraq, and until now we assumed that if we behaved well in the world, nothing would happen to us,” she said.

Michael Lüders, a Middle East expert and government policy consultant, said, “Germany is reorienting its (foreign) policy. It did not call for an immediate cease-fire (during Israeli attacks) in Lebanon, and that was disappointing in the Arab world. Some radical forces now think Germany should be punished,” he said.

I have always found that I can talk to liberals because at least you know where each other stands.  Most often I cannot persuade the liberal to see things my way, but at least there is a clash of world views, and eventually one will be proven correct.

The most difficult times I have when conversing with people who do not yet understand the war that radical Islam has declared against the U.S. is the “conservative” thinker, the isolationist who, like Pat Buchanan, believes that it is U.S. presence and intervention in the affairs of other nations and the existence of our troops in other parts of the world that has “caused” the radical Islamicists to hate us so.  If it had not been for our hegemony and colonialism, they say, none of this would have happened.

I find it so difficult to talk to these people because there is almost nothing to say to them.  The fact that history denies this view is irrelevant.  In other words, it is fairly well known that the so-called Crusades were primarily defensive struggles against Islam as it came north into Europe (or at least we can say that it began that way).  At the time that Islam began to assert itself militarily, there was no colonial presence of Europe into Africa or the Middle East.

And yet the Islamicists still attacked, didn’t they?

Folks, we could fold our tents in Iraq, remove all U.S. troops from everywhere in the world, and declare that we will never again have U.S. troops on foreign soil for any reason under the sun.  And the Islamicist response?

To cheer their victory and then begin planning their all out attack on the U.S. homeland.

So here are a couple of questions for you: Do you want to fight the terrorists on foreign soil or U.S. soil?  Do you want to have IEDs blowing up in the streets of Ramadi, or the street on which you live?

As my friend Knighthawk says of the Islamicist approach: “Conform or die.  Get it?”  And as I say, fight them there or fight them here.  Get it?

The Washington Post is reporting what so many news outlets in Israel are reporting (JPost, Haaretz, etc.), regarding the absolute debacle over the last several weeks:

JERUSALEM, Aug. 18 — Sgt. Lior Rahamin’s Israeli reserve unit had not trained in two years. When its members were called up for the Lebanon war, they didn’t have straps for their guns, spare ammunition, flak jackets or more than one good radio. There were other shortages: Twice their operations were canceled because they had no water to take; once they went two days without food.

“Hezbollah didn’t surprise us. We were surprised by the Israel Defense Forces,” said Rahamin, 30, a paratrooper who was wounded fighting in Lebanon in 1997 and who volunteered to go with his unit again. The next time they call, he said, “we will not show up.”

[ … ]

“If we would have gone in with more foot soldiers, we would have done more,” said Avi Hubara, 40, a schoolteacher and reservist who volunteered to go to Lebanon to fight. “But the politicians were scared to make decisions. It was a failure. We got people killed. There was lots of friendly fire. We did not hurt the capability of the Hezbollah. We did not return the kidnapped soldiers. We did not win.”

[ … ]

“We were getting ready to board the bus in Lebanon with faces painted for combat, but they called us back,” said Sgt. Yuval Drori, 30, a reservist who works at a software company. “Another time we were at the border, with bullets in the chambers, but they canceled again. The mission changed every 30 minutes. There was a great sense of a big mess.”

“In the last six years, there hadn’t been any preparation” for putting soldiers into combat, said a retired major general, Shaul Givoli, director of the Council for Peace and Security near Tel Aviv. “Even the rations had expired.”

I think that there are some lessons to be learned, but some lessons to reject as well.  In fact, it may be as important to reject the wrong ones as to learn from the right ones.

There is almost an orgy of international praise for Hezbollah’s military capability right now.  I think it is important to get this right.  Hezbollah has a few thousand men, some bunkers, and several thousand rockets.  They don’t even come close to a major military power.  Their having survived the recent conflict should be attributed to the facts that they were deeply dug in and knew how to disappear amongst the population.  They did prove two things though: they are on a war-footing, and they are willing to perish for their beliefs.

In my post “Israeli Army in Disarray During War,” I cited a news report that:

Israel’s largest paper, Yediot Ahronot, quoted one soldier as saying thirsty troops threw chlorine tablets into filthy water in sheep and cow troughs. Another said his unit took canteens from dead guerrillas.

This is very telling.  I get word from my son in the Marines frequently concerning his training, what he is going through at the time, and how he feels.  It doesn’t bother me that the Israeli army was without food for a while.  I should not go too far with the details of my son’s training (this is considered a “no-no”).  But it is customary to go several days without sleep or food.  They must be capable of doing this while waging war and making battlefield decisions, since at times they will be doing exactly that while their lives are on the line.

And it may seem strange to lay hold of something as simple as water as a touchstone for the condition of the Israeli army, but I think it makes perfect sense.  An army that is without water is in serious … serious … trouble.  While I am certain that his superiors do an adequate job of training my son concerning the dangers of dehydration and overheating, I regularly (via phone) give my son a “safety brief” concerning these matters.

You must remember the facts concerning water and body heat.  The body can discharge heat in several ways: convection cooling, radiation cooling, conductive cooling and evaporative cooling.  Of these, evaporative cooling is the most significant.  When you sweat, the idea is that the water is then able to evaporate, taking with it the heat necessary to change phases (this is called the latent heat of vaporization).  This change of phase takes with it from the body just under 1000 BTUs/lbm of water, and without it a man on the battlefield is in danger of not only heat exhaustion, but heat stroke and even death.  I regularly lecture my son on ensuring that his “camelback” is full of water, and that he hydrates regularly.

Regarding heat stroke, if the core body temperature increases to around 105 degrees F and stays for any length of time, the proteins in the brain begin to change form, and permanent brain damage occurs.  Of course, exhaustion, fatigue, medical problems and brain damage are not good things on the battlefield.  Finally, in conditions of dehydration, the blood thickens and less of it is sent to the brain.  This causes a loss of mental and cognitive capabilities.  Again, not a good thing on the battlefield.

The lack of basic provisions such as water (the most basic of all) shows that Israel was not — and is not — on a war footing.

What is not the case is that Hezbollah’s ranks are filled with supermen.  Again, this is not a lesson to be taken from this conflict.  Israel can get itself on a war footing again, but it will require re-arming, re-training, re-tooling the command and control, ensuring that there is a clear line of authority all the way up the ranks, and most of all, preparing mentally for the fact that Israel is at war.  This war will not abate for some time into the foreseeable future.  Israel has a smart army and one of the best and most seasoned air forces in the world.  This standoff is not the end.  It is only the beginning.  I have no doubt that Israel will do what is necessary to win.

But it will not be helpful to learn the wrong lessons.  The wrong lesson is that Hezbollah is a powerful army.  No, it is a band of thugs, several thousand strong, dug into holes in the ground.  The right lesson is that the IDF was unprepared.

Let’s hope that they learn the lesson well.

Just as I finished this post, I read a piece by Douglas Farah concerning the Islamic strategy in Europe.  His final quote is telling, not just for Europe, but for Israel too:

We do not have a plan. They do. History shows that those that plan, anticipate and have a coherent strategy usually win. We are not winning.

If Mark Steyn is correct, it won’t matter for Europe anyway since Europe is self-destructing.

In Iraq there are gains.  The recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict was a standoff and a debacle for Israel.  The war on terror in the U.S. has suffered from courtroom setbacks.  We have failed to stop Iran from regional hegemony, and the Shia world is riding high in their collective defiance of Israel, proposed U.N. sanctions, and the U.S. in Iraq.  The Iraq-Iran borders are leaking, and Iranian influence in Iraq is burdensome.

Faster … please?

The Washington Post is reporting what so many news outlets in Israel are reporting (JPost, Haaretz, etc.), regarding the absolute debacle over the last several weeks:

JERUSALEM, Aug. 18 — Sgt. Lior Rahamin’s Israeli reserve unit had not trained in two years. When its members were called up for the Lebanon war, they didn’t have straps for their guns, spare ammunition, flak jackets or more than one good radio. There were other shortages: Twice their operations were canceled because they had no water to take; once they went two days without food.

“Hezbollah didn’t surprise us. We were surprised by the Israel Defense Forces,” said Rahamin, 30, a paratrooper who was wounded fighting in Lebanon in 1997 and who volunteered to go with his unit again. The next time they call, he said, “we will not show up.”

[ … ]

“If we would have gone in with more foot soldiers, we would have done more,” said Avi Hubara, 40, a schoolteacher and reservist who volunteered to go to Lebanon to fight. “But the politicians were scared to make decisions. It was a failure. We got people killed. There was lots of friendly fire. We did not hurt the capability of the Hezbollah. We did not return the kidnapped soldiers. We did not win.”

[ … ]

“We were getting ready to board the bus in Lebanon with faces painted for combat, but they called us back,” said Sgt. Yuval Drori, 30, a reservist who works at a software company. “Another time we were at the border, with bullets in the chambers, but they canceled again. The mission changed every 30 minutes. There was a great sense of a big mess.”

“In the last six years, there hadn’t been any preparation” for putting soldiers into combat, said a retired major general, Shaul Givoli, director of the Council for Peace and Security near Tel Aviv. “Even the rations had expired.”

I think that there are some lessons to be learned, but some lessons to reject as well.  In fact, it may be as important to reject the wrong ones as to learn from the right ones.

There is almost an orgy of international praise for Hezbollah’s military capability right now.  I think it is important to get this right.  Hezbollah has a few thousand men, some bunkers, and several thousand rockets.  They don’t even come close to a major military power.  Their having survived the recent conflict should be attributed to the facts that they were deeply dug in and knew how to disappear amongst the population.  They did prove two things though: they are on a war-footing, and they are willing to perish for their beliefs.

In my post “Israeli Army in Disarray During War,” I cited a news report that:

Israel’s largest paper, Yediot Ahronot, quoted one soldier as saying thirsty troops threw chlorine tablets into filthy water in sheep and cow troughs. Another said his unit took canteens from dead guerrillas.

This is very telling.  I get word from my son in the Marines frequently concerning his training, what he is going through at the time, and how he feels.  It doesn’t bother me that the Israeli army was without food for a while.  I should not go too far with the details of my son’s training (this is considered a “no-no”).  But it is customary to go several days without sleep or food.  They must be capable of doing this while waging war and making battlefield decisions, since at times they will be doing exactly that while their lives are on the line.

And it may seem strange to lay hold of something as simple as water as a touchstone for the condition of the Israeli army, but I think it makes perfect sense.  An army that is without water is in serious … serious … trouble.  While I am certain that his superiors do an adequate job of training my son concerning the dangers of dehydration and overheating, I regularly (via phone) give my son a “safety brief” concerning these matters.

You must remember the facts concerning water and body heat.  The body can discharge heat in several ways: convection cooling, radiation cooling, conductive cooling and evaporative cooling.  Of these, evaporative cooling is the most significant.  When you sweat, the idea is that the water is then able to evaporate, taking with it the heat necessary to change phases (this is called the latent heat of vaporization).  This change of phase takes with it from the body just under 1000 BTUs/lbm of water, and without it a man on the battlefield is in danger of not only heat exhaustion, but heat stroke and even death.  I regularly lecture my son on ensuring that his “camelback” is full of water, and that he hydrates regularly.

Regarding heat stroke, if the core body temperature increases to around 105 degrees F and stays for any length of time, the proteins in the brain begin to change form, and permanent brain damage occurs.  Of course, exhaustion, fatigue, medical problems and brain damage are not good things on the battlefield.  Finally, in conditions of dehydration, the blood thickens and less of it is sent to the brain.  This causes a loss of mental and cognitive capabilities.  Again, not a good thing on the battlefield.

The lack of basic provisions such as water (the most basic of all) shows that Israel was not — and is not — on a war footing.

What is not the case is that Hezbollah’s ranks are filled with supermen.  Again, this is not a lesson to be taken from this conflict.  Israel can get itself on a war footing again, but it will require re-arming, re-training, re-tooling the command and control, ensuring that there is a clear line of authority all the way up the ranks, and most of all, preparing mentally for the fact that Israel is at war.  This war will not abate for some time into the foreseeable future.  Israel has a smart army and one of the best and most seasoned air forces in the world.  This standoff is not the end.  It is only the beginning.  I have no doubt that Israel will do what is necessary to win.

But it will not be helpful to learn the wrong lessons.  The wrong lesson is that Hezbollah is a powerful army.  No, it is a band of thugs, several thousand strong, dug into holes in the ground.  The right lesson is that the IDF was unprepared.

Let’s hope that they learn the lesson well.

Just as I finished this post, I read a piece by Douglas Farah concerning the Islamic strategy in Europe.  His final quote is telling, not just for Europe, but for Israel too:

We do not have a plan. They do. History shows that those that plan, anticipate and have a coherent strategy usually win. We are not winning.

If Mark Steyn is correct, it won’t matter for Europe anyway since Europe is self-destructing.

In Iraq there are gains.  The recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict was a standoff and a debacle for Israel.  The war on terror in the U.S. has suffered from courtroom setbacks.  We have failed to stop Iran from regional hegemony, and the Shia world is riding high in their collective defiance of Israel, proposed U.N. sanctions, and the U.S. in Iraq.  The Iraq-Iran borders are leaking, and Iranian influence in Iraq is burdensome.

Faster … please?

There is good news coming from Iraq.  See the MNF web site for “Iraq security crackdown hinders terrorists,” and another story about more al Qaida in Iraq being caught, another about death squads being rounded up, another on knowledge being gained on terrorist networks in Iraq, and another on a huge weapons cache being discovered.  In my post “U.S. Generals and Captain’s Journal on Same Page – Almost,” I said:

Let’s take counsel from General George Patton.

“In war the only sure defense is offense, and the efficiency of the offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it.

I have always been fascinated by the extent to which people willingly believe myths.

Courtesy of Right Wing News I found this interesting piece of history — history that you will never see in the textbooks (and NPR and Bill Moyer will never cover it).

From Issues & Views (a black owned and operated web site):

If you are unfamiliar with the history of blacks who fought for the Confederacy, here is an informative video. Enjoy engrossing presentations by two black scholars who share their vast knowledge of the South. Professor Edward C. Smith is Director of American Studies at American University in Washington, DC, and Nelson Winbush is a retired school teacher .

Cutting through what he calls the “mythology” that passes for history, Smith shares some little known facts about the pre-Civil War period. “Let us look at the total population of Washington, DC from 1800 until 1870. In 1800, when the city first became the nation’s capital, there were 746 blacks living in the city, of which 123 were free; 620 were slaves. The black population steadily increased, as well as the free black population. By 1830, a dramatic change had taken place. Now there are nearly 6,000 blacks, of which well over 3,000 are free. Remember, the Civil War was not to begin for another 31 years. By the time we get to 1860, there are almost 11,000 blacks living in Washington, more than 9,000 of them are free, and fewer than 2,000 are slaves. And this was happening all over the South. By the time the United States Census was taken in 1860, there were over 500,000 free blacks scattered throughout the South.

“The important thing to keep in mind is that slavery was dying out on its own. It would have died had there been no war at all. It would have taken a little longer, but the war simply speeded up a process that had already begun to take effect. Since there were over 500,000 free blacks throughout the South, this meant that every slave always saw free blacks around him, and knew that freedom was possible.”

Showing historical artifacts owned by his grandfather, Louis Nelson, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, Nelson Winbush sets some records straight. A member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Winbush tells about black and white soldiers who fought together in the War, not to preserve slavery, but to keep out invaders who were bent on destruction. On the home front, black and white family members protected one another from the brutality of invading Yankee soldiers. “When the Yanks came down South, the first thing they did was rape the black women. Then they raped the black missy girls. Then they went and got drunk and raped the white women. The black man’s wives and daughters were raped before the white women were raped. So, if you talk about bonding [between black and white southerners], there’s your cause for bonding.”

Says Winbush, “There are those who argue that blacks did not fight for the Confederacy. If this was the case, then why was my grandfather’s application for pension received, accepted and approved? He was Number 32 for the Colored Man’s Pension, State of Tennessee.”

To learn more about this side of Civil War history, purchase Black Southern Heritage, a two-hour video produced by Preserving Our Heritage. Contact Mike Crane: SPOFGA@yahoo.com

Allow me to give one more example; this one is completely unrelated by subject, but very much related by analogy.  It is the myth that Galileo and the church were at ideological war with each other, the church having muzzled the exercise of science.  Nothing could be further from the truth, inasmuch as Galileo’s true enemies were his scientific detractors who used the church as a way to silence him.  Thomas Lessl has two great pieces on it here and here.  Jonah Goldberg has an NRO article on it here.

As I said, it is unrelated to the issue of the Civil War and slavery, but it goes to show that the myth (that every school child is taught) about Galileo and the church is false, yet believed by so many people today that it is not likely ever to be expunged from the public consciousness.

I have always been fascinated by the extent to which people willingly believe myths.

Courtesy of Right Wing News I found this interesting piece of history — history that you will never see in the textbooks (and NPR and Bill Moyer will never cover it).

From Issues & Views (a black owned and operated web site):

If you are unfamiliar with the history of blacks who fought for the Confederacy, here is an informative video. Enjoy engrossing presentations by two black scholars who share their vast knowledge of the South. Professor Edward C. Smith is Director of American Studies at American University in Washington, DC, and Nelson Winbush is a retired school teacher .

Cutting through what he calls the “mythology” that passes for history, Smith shares some little known facts about the pre-Civil War period. “Let us look at the total population of Washington, DC from 1800 until 1870. In 1800, when the city first became the nation’s capital, there were 746 blacks living in the city, of which 123 were free; 620 were slaves. The black population steadily increased, as well as the free black population. By 1830, a dramatic change had taken place. Now there are nearly 6,000 blacks, of which well over 3,000 are free. Remember, the Civil War was not to begin for another 31 years. By the time we get to 1860, there are almost 11,000 blacks living in Washington, more than 9,000 of them are free, and fewer than 2,000 are slaves. And this was happening all over the South. By the time the United States Census was taken in 1860, there were over 500,000 free blacks scattered throughout the South.

“The important thing to keep in mind is that slavery was dying out on its own. It would have died had there been no war at all. It would have taken a little longer, but the war simply speeded up a process that had already begun to take effect. Since there were over 500,000 free blacks throughout the South, this meant that every slave always saw free blacks around him, and knew that freedom was possible.”

Showing historical artifacts owned by his grandfather, Louis Nelson, who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, Nelson Winbush sets some records straight. A member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Winbush tells about black and white soldiers who fought together in the War, not to preserve slavery, but to keep out invaders who were bent on destruction. On the home front, black and white family members protected one another from the brutality of invading Yankee soldiers. “When the Yanks came down South, the first thing they did was rape the black women. Then they raped the black missy girls. Then they went and got drunk and raped the white women. The black man’s wives and daughters were raped before the white women were raped. So, if you talk about bonding [between black and white southerners], there’s your cause for bonding.”

Says Winbush, “There are those who argue that blacks did not fight for the Confederacy. If this was the case, then why was my grandfather’s application for pension received, accepted and approved? He was Number 32 for the Colored Man’s Pension, State of Tennessee.”

To learn more about this side of Civil War history, purchase Black Southern Heritage, a two-hour video produced by Preserving Our Heritage. Contact Mike Crane: SPOFGA@yahoo.com

Allow me to give one more example; this one is completely unrelated by subject, but very much related by analogy.  It is the myth that Galileo and the church were at ideological war with each other, the church having muzzled the exercise of science.  Nothing could be further from the truth, inasmuch as Galileo’s true enemies were his scientific detractors who used the church as a way to silence him.  Thomas Lessl has two great pieces on it here and here.  Jonah Goldberg has an NRO article on it here.

As I said, it is unrelated to the issue of the Civil War and slavery, but it goes to show that the myth (that every school child is taught) about Galileo and the church is false, yet believed by so many people today that it is not likely ever to be expunged from the public consciousness.

Iranian officials have told the world that they will not end their enrichment program:

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said a compromise has to be achieved during future negotiations.

“We won’t suspend (uranium enrichment). Everything has to come out of negotiations. Suspension is not on our agenda,” Asefi told a press conference Sunday.

In further news today, Iran has blocked inspections at its Natanz enrichment facility.  As another indicator of Iran’s intent regarding enrichment, we learned today that:

Iran’s supreme leader said Tehran will pursue nuclear technology despite a U.N. Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment by the end of the month or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has made its own decision and in the nuclear case, God willing, with patience and power, will continue its path,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to state television. 

No one (who has a brain and is sentient) really expected Iran to cease its enrichment program.  More interesting was this response from Germany:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed for a “solid answer” from Iran on the package.

“I still hope that it will be positive, although some signals have been very confused,” said Merkel, whose country drew up the package with the five permanent Security Council members.

Chancellor Merkel (not Iran) is “confused” because of lack of a “solid” response.  Let me help.  Iran is pursuing an enrichment program and has said no to your requests to stop.

There.  I hope that was helpful.  I will be sending the invoice for my consulting time in the mail to the Chancellor.

Iranian officials have told the world that they will not end their enrichment program:

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said a compromise has to be achieved during future negotiations.

“We won’t suspend (uranium enrichment). Everything has to come out of negotiations. Suspension is not on our agenda,” Asefi told a press conference Sunday.

In further news today, Iran has blocked inspections at its Natanz enrichment facility.  As another indicator of Iran’s intent regarding enrichment, we learned today that:

Iran’s supreme leader said Tehran will pursue nuclear technology despite a U.N. Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment by the end of the month or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has made its own decision and in the nuclear case, God willing, with patience and power, will continue its path,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to state television. 

No one (who has a brain and is sentient) really expected Iran to cease its enrichment program.  More interesting was this response from Germany:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed for a “solid answer” from Iran on the package.

“I still hope that it will be positive, although some signals have been very confused,” said Merkel, whose country drew up the package with the five permanent Security Council members.

Chancellor Merkel (not Iran) is “confused” because of lack of a “solid” response.  Let me help.  Iran is pursuing an enrichment program and has said no to your requests to stop.

There.  I hope that was helpful.  I will be sending the invoice for my consulting time in the mail to the Chancellor.

I feel sort of like Mike Adams when he writes for Townhall.com, wondering whether his wife is reading his prose about his Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin action figures.

Well, my wife doesn’t read my blog, so the secret about my love affair is safe with me and my readers.

For years I went to Myrtle Beach because my family wanted to.  They loved it.  I was mostly misreable.  There was hot sun, sand, salt and a gaggle of people.  Always a gaggle of people.  I would have been happier with a backpack strapped to me, hiking through the mountains of Appalachia under the canopy of the forest.  But if my family was happy, I was happy.

Still, she caught my eye.  I couldn’t help it.  Oh … my … goodness, was she magnificent!  Her curves were powerful, yet sleek.  I always had to admire her from a distance.  I was never with the “in” crowd, so I could only look and listen and wish.

When she graced us with her appearance, everyone looked.  And stared.  I do mean everyone.  Men, women and children.  But the men, especially.  Seeing her made the trips to the beach bearable for me, that is, right up until the time when Bill Clinton closed down Myrtle Beach Air Force Base.

Yes, that year was the last time I got to admire the A-10 “Warthog.”  I have always loved her.  I recall going on a tour of MBAFB with other civilians, and while standing before the beautiful A-10, some bimbo asked “where are the planes that Tom Cruise flew?”  I held my tongue, sort of.  I murmured something about the fact that ‘you’re an idiot, please allow the rest of us to enjoy the show.’

Here is a picture of the aircraft I saw that day:

It is a subsonic aircraft by design.  Its design is to lumber around the battlefield looking for tanks and other armored vehicles to kill.  It has been the most effective aircraft for doing just that every built and put into action.  It is more effective than the attack helicopter.

She has a 30 mm Gatling gun that fires (at the time we went on the tour) depleted Uranium bullets at the rate of 3900 rounds per minutes.  I distinctly recall the deep “Brrrrr …” of the gun during the first Gulf war, after which you knew that another of Sadam’s tanks had been destroyed.

Look at her engines.  They are in front of the rear wing, with the read wing being used as protection to decrease the heat signature of the engines in order to minimize the chances of a surface-to-air heat-seeking missle hurting her. 

It has a titanium bathtub for the pilot to sit above, and redundant hydraulics for control of the aircraft.  And just in case both trains of hydraulics are knocked out by enemy fire, there is backup manual control (by sticks and cables) to get the pilot home safely.

You can read more about her here and here and here.  But there is an ugly wind blowing.  It is going to cost money to keep the old girls going.  Let’s make sure that they get this money.  The Strategy Page has this:

August 18, 2006: The U.S. Air Force wants to keep it’s A-10 ground attack aircraft going at least another ten years. That means that over 300 of them have to be rebuilt and upgraded. That’s because the A-10s were built three decades ago, with a service life of 4,000 hours in the air. Most have already got over 6,000 hours. So refurbishment will extend service life to 16,000 hours, and install an F-16 like cockpit, along with the ability to use a targeting pod and deliver GPS and laser guided bombs. This makes the A-10 the most versatile ground support aircraft in service. The A-10 still has its 30mm cannon, which, while designed to destroying armored vehicles, has proved useful against all manner of targets. The targeting pod also enables A-10 pilots to cruise around at night, and get a high-resolution view of what’s going on down there. The infantry depend on the extra eye in the sky, and the ability to deliver anything from 30mm cannon fire, to Maverick missiles to 500 pound JDAM smart bombs.

You will not find a better lady for the job for this money anywhere.  She is absolutely magnificent, and while I will never get to ride aboard this beautiful aircraft, I can still admire her from a distance, can I not?

Postscript: My job is in nuclear engineering.  I can weigh in a bit on this issue of depleted Uranium.  By depleted, they mean that U-235 has been removed and the only thing left is U-238.  U-235 is fissile, which means that it can fission with a “thermal” neutron, while U-238 is fissionable, not fissile, and can fission only with a neutron above 1 MeV.  Translation: U-235 can be used to make a bomb.  U-238 can’t.  But it pays to use U-238 to make a bullet, because it has a density just above 10 grams/cc, as compared to steel (7.82 grams/cc) or lead (which is too soft and maleable to be used to kill armored vehicles).