… stop telling old war stories.
I was on the phone this afternoon with a friend whose son is in Army Airborne School. The conversation got me to thinking about my time in the service and how long ago it was. A few years ago, I was at a reception, and I meet an admiral. Looking over his decorations, I realized that he was too young to have any of the combat decorations I had received.
I am getting old.
Not long after the attack on the consulate, the President answered a Denver newsman’s question about Benghazi with these words:
I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure we are securing our personnel and that we are doing whatever we need to. Number two, we are going to investigate exactly what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice.
We know from Greg Hick’s testimony that special forces were ordered to stand down rather than provide assistance. Why wasn’t the President’s order (number one above) carried out? If it was, in fact, given?
As The Other McCain noted earlier in the day concerning Syria’s reaction to Israeli attacks, CNN is reporting that a “top Syrian official” in “an exclusive interview” has that the Israeli attack on a military facility outside Damascus was a “declaration of war.”
Not to be too pedantic, but Israel and Syria have been in a state of war for decades. The fighting on the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 ground on into the spring of 1974, ending in a disengagement agreement. There has been no formal peace between the two countries ever since.
The Battle of Puebla took place on 5 May, 1862, near the city of Puebla during the French intervention in Mexico. The date is observed in the state of Puebla to commemorate the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces.
Although Mexican citizens feel very proud of the meaning of Cinco de Mayo, it is not a national holiday in Mexico, but it is an official holiday in the State of Puebla where the battle took place and in the neighboring State of Vera Cruz. However, all public schools are closed nation-wide in Mexico on 5 May.
Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.
—Winston Churchill
The Daily Caller report that North Korea has its missile forces on alert and aimed at US targets.
I believe VodkaPundit has properly analyzed the situation:
UPDATE—The Telegraph reports that the Nork’s target list includes Washington, DC; Hawaii; Los Angeles; and Austin, Texas.
The first three targets make sense, but Austin? Someone should tell them, “Don’t mess with Texas.”
Gentlemen, when the enemy is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon.
—Horatio Nelson
Mark Steyn’s post today at NRO deals in part with the use of armed drones by the military.
For a war without strategic purpose, a drone’ll do. Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen born in New Mexico, was whacked by a Predator not on a battlefield but after an apparently convivial lunch at a favorite Yemeni restaurant. Two weeks later, al-Awlaki’s son Abdulrahman was dining on the terrace of another local eatery when the CIA served him the old Hellfire Special and he wound up splattered all over the patio. Abdulrahman was 16, and born in Denver. As I understand it, the Supreme Court has ruled that American minors, convicted of the most heinous crimes, cannot be executed. But you can gaily atomize them halfway round the planet.
That sort of killing raises some difficult questions, and the prospect of such use of drones by civilian law enforcement brought Rand Paul to the floor of Senate for his recent filibuster.
Far fetched?
The Department of Education has its own SWAT team and has used it to conduct a raid at the wrong address that left a homeowner handcuffed in a hot police car for 6 hours. Over someone else’s student loan fraud. Even the Railroad Retirement Board has armed agents. OK, I can understand that agency Inspectors General need to conduct investigations to uncover fraud and the like, but couldn’t the door-kicking be detailed out to the U. S. Marshals?
Mr. Steyn asks:
If it’s not “far-fetched” for the education secretary to have his own SWAT team, why would it be “far-fetched” for the education secretary to have his own drone fleet? … When you consider the resources brought to bear against a nobody like Randy Weaver for no rational purpose, is it really so “far-fetched” to foresee the Department of Justice deploying drones to the Ruby Ridges and Wacos of the 2020s?
Read the whole thing.
Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.
—Mao Zedong
The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
—Sun Tzu
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
—Eric Hoffer
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
—Niccolo Machiavelli
Herschel Smith has a good post over at Captain’s Journal that examines the question of “When did the Left fall out of love with guns?” His answer is that the Left still loves gun–their guns.
Yes, the left still loves guns. There is no other reason for the fawning acceptance of the vulgar SWAT raid tactics in which innocent men like Mr. Eurie Stamps get shot and killed. These tactics are repeated all across America every day.
The left just doesn’t love guns in the wrong hands, and anyone who isn’t an agent of the state is the wrong hands. Listen to Representative Jim Himes (D – CT) tell you why high capacity magazines are still necessary in government hands.
There is absolutely no justification for weapons that were made for the explicit purpose of killing lots of people quickly to be in the hands of civilians.
Let that wash over you again. “Killing lots of people quickly” and “civilian hands.” The two don’t go together.
The police are civilians. If the arms the Progressives want to ban don’t belong in civilian hands, then the cops shouldn’t have them. After all, as was asked by a gun owner in New York, “Who are the police at war with?”
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: OK, let’s say that civilians shouldn’t have these arms, but that the police need them. One solution would be to make the police part of the military, but that would require repeal (or severe amendment) of the Posse Comitatus Act. Well, if we’re going to let the military do policing, the current civilian police forces are redundant. Some of the cops could be rolled into the Army and the rest laid off. Think of the budget savings!
Also, think about what happened the last time we used a military force for law enforcement. Reconstruction. How did that turn out?
As long as we’re looking at history, what has been the outcomes of trying to restrict the possession of things rather than outlawing criminal behavior. Prohibition. Did That result in more or fewer societal problems? The War on Drugs. What has that done for crime?
Given that neither a bottle of booze nor a joint can shoot back, how much violence could we expect as a result of creating a black market in firearms?
UPDATE–Prof. Reynolds writes:
Why are you afraid of the Constitution? The answer, of course, is that the political class doesn’t want citizens. It wants subjects.
UPDATE 2–Or as Hubert Humphrey said:
Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. … [T]he right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.
The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
—Sun Tzu
Stacy McCain has a post up about how societal decadence has led to a confusion of the proper complementary roles of men and women.
Read the whole thing, but before you go, allow me to make an observation about gender confusion. The very term itself is confused. Gender is a property of nouns and pronouns. Sex is a property of living organisms. My name is masculine. I am male.
μολὼν λαβέ Come and take them.
—Leonidas I
(to Xerxes when he was ordered to
give up his arms at Thermopyle)
I would like to express my appreciation for the following guns:
A Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver, a Browning High Power pistol, a Model 1911A1 pistol, and an M14 rifle—these saved my life at one time or another while I was serving in Viet Nam.
A Colt Detective Special revolver, a Smith & Wesson 645 pistol, and a Winchester Model 1200 Stainless Police shotgun—these have kept various situations from becoming life-threatening by forcing aggressive people to consider the cost of further aggression.
A Thompson/Center Contender pistol, a Marlin 1895 rifle, and a Browning BPS shotgun—these have put free-range organic meat on our family’s table.
Stacy McCain writes about the experience and opportunities facing his son in the Army’s 18X program.
The is no problem in the Universe that cannot be solved by the appropriate application of sustained phaser fire.
—attributed to Lt. Cmdr. Worf
I read Breitbart Unmasked so that you don’t have to. That site has put up a post by its publisher, The Watchful Avenger, citing my larger than average collection of firearms as evidence that I’m preparing for a coming civil war.
Sigh.
I had had enough of war over 40 years ago. In January, 1972, I was in Viet Nam serving with the Army’s 12th Combat Aviation Group.
While I believe that the Second Amendment was adopted to insure that citizens would be able to resist the government if it were to become tyrannical, I don’t expect that to happen again in foreseeable future. (Happen again? Yes, we’ve had justified citizen rebellions against oppression, the Battle of Athens, for example.)
Would I participate in such an uprising? I don’t know. Several factors would weigh against that. First, most of my firearms are more suited to target shooting and hunting than 21st century military service. I suppose my scoped .270 would make a good sniper rifle, but ammunition supply could quickly become dicey in a real combat zone. Yes, I do have an AR-15, but it isn’t chambered for the commonly used 5.56 mm NATO/.223 Remington round. Yes, I have some older military rifles as collector items, but, once again, ammunition supply in combat would be iffy.
If I’m supposed to be stocking up for a fight, I’ve got the wrong stuff.
Second, my age. I’m 65. I’m too old for the Unorganized Militia under Title 10 of the U. S. Code (17 to 44, inclusive). I’m even too old to be recalled if I had been a Regular Army officer instead of a Reservist (up to 64).
ASIDE—My draft status (I still have my draft card) is 5A—veteran with completed obligation—and that’s fine by me. I note that the draft status of everyone whose name has been associated with Breitbart Unmasked, if they were of draftable age, would be 4F—physically (Cabin Boy Bill Schmalfeldt and First Mate Neal Rauhauser), mentally, or morally (Dread Pirate Kimberlin) unfit for service.
Would I take sides in a civil war? Probably. But supporting one side or the other would not require a geezer like me to go to the front.
Still, I doubt that a civil war is likely in my lifetime. My reasons for believing that are complex, and may be the subject of another post. Someday.
The Washington Times reports that SecDef Panetta has ordered the Armed Forces to prepare for budget cuts. (H/T, Wombat-socho)
Would restricting them to using 10-round magazines save money on ammunition?
There’s a silly idea going around that since the Second Amendment was written in the 18th-century, it only secures a right to possess muskets. I suppose that folks who believe that must have slept through History class during the section on the American Revolution.
Yes, most of the soldiers in the Continental Army and most of the patriot militias were armed with smooth-bore muskets. Most. Not all. Indeed, the use of rifles by some militia units helped turn the tide of several key battles, the Battle of King’s Mountain, for instance.
So the Founders, when they wrote the Bill of Rights, understood that it was likely that the personal weapons of militiamen could be more advanced than the general issue weapons carried by Regulars.
I’ll let that sink in for a moment.
That idea that the militia’s personal weapons, i.e., those possessed by the general populace, would probably be better than those provided to the regular Army stands in stark contrast to the current notion that citizens have no need for equipment that is almost, but not quite, as effective as that issued to active duty troops.
If we were to take that approach to gun control, … Well, I doubt the anti-gun crowd wants to go there.
Congratulations to Stacy McCain’s son who has entered the U. S. Army via the 18X program. Enlistees in that program are selected for their high scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and are offered the opportunity to attempt to qualify for the Special Forces.
Good luck and best wishes.
Hamas fires dozens or hundreds of rockets into Israel targeted at civilians.
Israel responds with successful attacks targeted at terrorist leaders.
Hamas whines. On Twitter.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
To all who served before me, with me, and after me: Thank you.
