Monday - August 11, 2008
Prediction: say goodbye to Georgia
UPDATE: THE END IS NEAR
Russian troops on the move toward Tbilisi. War likely to be over by Thursday at the latest.
Fat lady starts signing before the curtain goes up
Part 1: a look at pre-emptive surrender, um I mean “anticipatory capitulation” from Europe.
Part 2: Analyzing Georgia’s loss even while the fighting continues. Sad to say, but sometimes the bear eats you, and sometimes the bear eats you. It’s tough to eat a whole bear all by yourself.
Part 3: Atlanta Georgia in flames. Cities of Gori, Senaki, Zugdidi falling as Georgians exit post haste. South Ossetian capital city of Tskhinvali is in ruins.
Part 4: UN still useless: 4 meetings in 4 days and they can’t even agree to draft a resolution.
Saakashvili also warned that Russian aggression, if unchecked, would spread.
“Unless Russia is stopped … tomorrow Russian tanks might enter any European capital,” he said in a televised address on Friday. “I think everyone understands this by now.”
I think Saakashvili is learning what happens when you smack the Russian Bear in the nuts with a 2x4. Do I have the right understanding that the Georgian president started this whole thing
by sending troops into South Ossetia ... to put down rebel forces or something ... and that Ossetia (North & South) is actually part of
And after having attacked Russia and received an instant bloody nose, Saakashvili and various world leaders called for a time out an immediate cease-fire, which the Russians are ignoring?
That’s about what it looks like to me. Piss of the bear and get mauled. And the bear will chew on you as much as he wants until it gets boring. And there ain’t a thing you can do about it. Looks to me like the break-away republic of Georgia will be part of the N.C.C.P. inside a week. Bad move Saakashvili.
I could not be more wrong. IF, and it may be a big IF, IF this map is correct:
then South Ossetia is a region within Georgia. Which would explain why it’s being called a break away province. Duh. Well, when this hornet’s nest was first kicked over, I used Google Earth to find the place, and it really looked like South Ossetia was the region south of North Ossetia, south of the Caucus Mountains that run east-west there, but part of Russia, north of the Georgian border. So it could look like Georgia was trying to steal territory from the ruskies.
So it must be the case that “South Ossetia” is one of those unmapped regional zones, like “Kurdistan” that refer more to a region where some indigenous population lives, and less to where some arbitrary lines are drawn on a map? Ok then. I get it now.
So why has Russian been handing out passports to the people who live in this area for quite some time now? Isn’t that a rather dirty trick? Wouldn’t that be like Mexico mailing everyone in Texas and New Mexico a passport, and then sending in their army when the feds raid another religious cult center (like Waco) down there?
Ok then. This is looking more like typical Red thuggery. Dirty bastards. But they are going to win unless Georgia gets major outside help. The UN will do nothing. The euro-wienies will do nothing and they have no army to do it with. They dicked about so long with Georgia’s attempt to join NATO ... and Georgia still isn’t a member IIRC. So that won’t be a motivation for them. What kind of forces does the Ukraine have, and will they get involved in neighbor vs. neighbor? Probably not. That leaves the US. But we seem to have our hands full elsewhere. So how can we rush to the defense of this ally? Air campaign? Without their planes, tanks, trucks, and artillery, the Russian Army is just an armed mob. A big armed mob, but a mob nonetheless. If we went in and blew up all their toys that are inside Georgia, and defended their airspace, with that be enough to stop the Bear from advancing? I don’t know, but I bet we have less than 3 days to find out. And then what?
TBILISI, Georgia — Russian forces swept across Georgia on Monday, capturing the town of Gori and moving to within 35 miles of the capital city Tbilisi, FOX News confirmed.
Georgia reportedly was rushing more than 1,000 troops to Tbilisi in anticipation of a battle with Russian troops.
Russian armor, meanwhile, moved beyond two breakaway provinces and seized a military base and police stations in the country’s west, officials said.
The new forays into Georgia — even after Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge — appeared to show Russian determination to subdue the small, U.S.-backed country, which has been pressing for NATO membership.
The latest developments indicate that Russian troops have invaded Georgia proper from the separatist province of Abkhazia while most Georgian forces are locked up in fighting around South Ossetia.
That means Russia has them pinned but good. They have the Black Sea to the west blockaded. They have a ton of troops coming down from the border in the north, who by some convenient miracle just happened to be sitting en mass across the border just the other day. Hmm. Now they’ve come in from Abkhazia from the northwest, which takes out half of Georgia’s coastline. Um, I may be seeing some media bias here? Just how “separatist” is this province anyway? Because it’s about a fifth of the entire country. And coming into “Georgia proper” from there pretty much means they already control that entire area. I think Georgia is well and truly fucked.
The West has sharply criticized Russia’s military response to Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia as disproportionate, and the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations urged Russia on Monday to accept an immediate cease-fire and agree to international mediation.
“We want to see the Russians stand down,” deputy State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters in Washington.
In your dreams. Ain’t gonna happen. Unless you can smack the bear hard enough to stop him in his tracks. And that probably won’t happen either.
The United States is campaigning to get Russia to halt its retaliation and American officials have accused Russia of using the fighting to try to overthrow the Georgian government.
Um, am I misunderstanding everything all over again? The Georgian leader sent troops in to an area in his own country right? So how on earth is Russian involvement “retaliation”? Or is the modern way to steal territory from your neighbors the issuing of passports? “Look, more than half the people here have Russian passports. Therefore they must be Russian citizens. Therefore this must be Russian territory.” Pretty sneaky move there Vlad.
Putin’s comments reflected Russia’s growing irritation with Western condemnation.
“The scale of their cynicism causes surprise,” Putin said. “It’s the ability to cast white as black and black as white which is surprising, the ability to cast the aggressor as the victim and blame the victims for the consequences.”
Putin remarks also reflected deep anger at Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili.
“Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages,” Putin said. “And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds — these leaders must be taken under protection.”
Putin is telling the story ass backwards, and his story is that everyone else is seeing this situation ass backwards. It’s a double negation. At least! Yeah, it’s Good Mother Russia rushing to the aid of some poor mistreated victims. Like that’s ever happened. But it shows an essential truth:
Control the press and you control the truth. And perhaps the world as well.
I welcome comments from readers who have a better understanding of this mess than I do and can find some grains of the truth.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/11/2008 at 12:27 PM
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Permalink • BAD NEWS BEARS. THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!
Pleassseee Mr. Custer, I don’t wanna go!
EDITORIAL IN THE MORNING TELEGRAPH
Monday, August 11, 08
War in Georgia needs to be stopped before it spreads further
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 11/08/2008There is no purpose in deceiving ourselves. The West is in no position, practically or morally, to go to war with Russia. At the same time, we cannot afford to allow Russia unilaterally to redraw its borders, nor to place its heel upon the only oil pipeline in the former USSR outside its control.
In 1918, Balfour declared: “The only thing that interests me in the Caucasus is the railway line which delivers oil from Baku to Batumi. The natives can cut each other to pieces, for all I care.” These days, we have to care about both. Before peaceniks start dusting off their pre-Iraq war “Don’t die for oil” placards, we should remind ourselves that it is the Kremlin, not the West, that is the energy oligarchs’ instrument: their desire for a monopoly is in large part responsible for Russian revanchism in the Caucasus.
This is not to say that the blame is all on one side. Some commentators are portraying the conflict in cartoonish terms, as a plucky little democracy being attacked by an authoritarian neighbour. Things are not so simple. Mikheil Saakashvili is no more a convinced liberal than Vladimir Putin (who, it must by now be clear, is still running Russia).
President Saakashvili came to power in a coup in 2004, securing a Saddam-like score of 96 per cent in a subsequent election. Like Mr Putin - indeed, like almost all autocratic leaders - he knows that a sense of national crisis can boost a regime’s popularity.
This time he miscalculated, believing that he could seize South Ossetia without provoking retaliation. South Ossetia may lie within Georgia’s recognised frontiers, just as Chechnya lies within the Russian federation, but this does not justify, in either case, the deployment of military force against a population that has opted for autonomy.
Georgia, no less than Russia, is (in Lenin’s phrase) “a prison of nations”. In seeking to overwhelm a small ethnic group by force, Mr Saakashvili did precisely what he accuses Russia of doing. But Russia’s response has been opportunistic, belligerent and disproportionate.
With a small war raging, the issue is not who started it but how to stop it. The unilateral Georgian ceasefire announced by a chastened Mr Saakashvili yesterday does not bring matters to a close. What is at stake now is the balance of power in the region.
If the Kremlin can, to all intents and purposes, annex South Ossetia, what, as Denis MacShane asks on this page, is to stop it absorbing other parts of the former Soviet Union with Russian populations? Might Russia not claim the right to act in defence of ethnic Russians in the Baltic states, or demand a land corridor to Kaliningrad, or the secession of the Russophile parts of Ukraine, or formal union with Belarus?
In retrospect, the West mishandled relations with Russia in the 1990s. As with Germany after 1918, we went from unconscionable harshness to appeasement, with almost no intermediate stage. Had we been a little less triumphalist at the end of the Cold War, a bruised Russian population might not have responded to the strongman appeal of Mr Putin. Later, we swung too far in the opposite direction. We admitted Russia to the G8, for which neither the size of its economy nor the state of its democracy qualified it. (Can the G8 any longer accommodate such a bellicose member?)
We averted our gaze from the asphyxiation of Chechnya. We made possible the current war when we allowed Russia to breach the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, which limited the number of troops it could station in the Caucasian region. Russia has responded to these concessions by, among other things, harassing British diplomatic staff and refusing to co-operate over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
We cannot expect a UN rendered impotent by Russia’s veto to settle this problem. France’s EU presidency has the ambition to halt the fighting, but not the means. John McCain is making the defence of Georgia a campaign issue. As of old, the issue may yet come down to a face-off between Russia and America.
OH GREAT. JUST WHAT WE NEED.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/11/2008 at 04:18 AM
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Permalink • Sunday - August 10, 2008
Devastation of Pearl Harbour revenge attacks revealed in BBC project .
Devastation of Pearl Harbour revenge attacks revealed in BBC project 2,000 feet below Pacific
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 7:21 PM on 10th August 2008Hollywood duo Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck portrayed the American desire to avenge the infamous Pearl Harbour bombings playing two US pilots in Michael Bay’s hit 2001 epic.
But, the true devastation of the revenge attacks on Japanese forces in 1944 has been captured in one of the most ambitious underwater projects ever undertaken.
Operation Hailstorm was two years in the making - but on February 17, 1944, American forces blitzed the Chuuk Islands, in the south western region of the Pacific Ocean, sinking 70 Japanese ships, 270 aircraft and killing close to 3,000 people - though the official death toll has never been confirmed.
A Japanese tank on the sunken deck of the the San Francisco Maru TX
A 30-strong team join forces to uncover the truth behind American revenge attacks on Japanese forces
(OH GREAT. WHAT’S THIS? ANOTHER CONSPIRACY THEORY? THEY WANT TO WHAT EXACTLY? “UNCOVER THE TRUTH BEHIND AMERICAN “REVENGE” ATTACKS ON JAPANESE FORCES. THE TRUTH YOU STUPID IDIOT, IS WE WERE AT WAR! LIKE, PPL KILLING EACH OTHER AND SINKING SHIPS AND SOLDIERS GIVING OTHER SOLDIERS BOO-BOOS YOU DUMB S*!#!!!
AM I BEING OVERLY SENSITIVE HERE? WHO THE HELL WRITES THEIR CAPTIONS? THEY MAKE IT SOUND LIKE WE DID SOMETHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY. GOSH, OUR GUYS SUNK A JAP FLEET. OH HECK. I AM SORRY. I MISSED IT AND IT WAS RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME ALL THE TIME.
THE PERSON OR PERSONS DOING THIS MAYBE THINK AMERICA SHOULD SIMPLY HAVE ISSUED ‘ASBOS’ TO THE JAPANESE FLEET. WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT?)And commissioned by the BBCs Natural History Unit, a 30 strong team of divers, deep sea biologists and under water cameraman explored remotest depths of the Pacific to unravel some of the secrets behind the America’s revenge attacks.
‘We were pushing the boundaries, spending extra long periods as a visitor in an alien element’, presenter-explorer Kate Humble told the Sunday Mirror.
‘I’m not a brave person and I was nervous because every dive has its risks’.
Series producer Dale Templar said: “It was a true voyage of discovery.
‘Most of the sites we explored had never been dived before.
‘The expedition undertook some of the deepest and most dangerous diving ever attempted by a TV crew.
‘But one of the most awe-inspiring sights was the graveyard of the Japanese fleet.
‘There were just so many ghosts down there.’
Pacific Abyss will be shown in three hour-long specials starting next Sunday on BBC1 at 8pm.
yeah well, wife tells me I need to make allowances for the ppl who write this caption stuff. she says they’re young and have little education as they’re only college grads, the victims of the new education here in uk. says I cuss too much. guess so. pisses me off anyway! they could have worded it better without making it appear like we’d committed some war crime. grumble-grumble
Posted by Drew458
on 08/10/2008 at 03:35 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - August 09, 2008
Georgia Declares War !! (almost)
not our Georgia, the other one.
TBLISI, Georgia (CNN)—Georgia’s parliament Saturday approved a request by President Mikhail Saakashvili’s to impose a “state of war,” as the conflict between Georgia and Russia escalated, Georgian officials said.
Saakashvili accused Russia of launching an unprovoked full-scale military attack against his country, including targeting civilian homes, while Russian officials insist their troops were protecting people from Georgia’s attacks on South Ossetia, a breakaway Georgian region that borders Russia.
Russia’s Interfax news agency said the death toll was at least 2,000 killed in the capital of South Ossetia and claimed the city has been destroyed.
Separatist-backed South Ossetian sources reported that about 1,600 people have died and 90 have been wounded in provincial capital Tskhinvali since Russian forces entered the territory Thursday.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived Saturday in Vladikavkaz, near Russia’s border with Georgia, Russia’s Interfax reported. Meanwhile, President George Bush, speaking from Beijing, called for an immediate halt to the violence, a stand-down by all troops, and an end to the Russian bombings.
The Georgian “state of war” order is not a formal declaration of war, and stops short of declaring martial law, according to Georgian officials who described it to CNN.
It gives Saakashvili powers he would not ordinarily have, such as issuing curfews, restricting the movement of people, or limiting commercial activities, those officials said.
It places the government on a 24-hour alert, said Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia during a conference call with reporters.
Saakashvili asked Western leaders to pressure Russia to agree to an immediate cease-fire, which he said his country would willingly observe first.
“We are dealing with absolutely criminal and crazy acts of irresponsible and reckless decision makers, which is on the ground producing dramatic and tragic consequences,” Saakashvili said Saturday afternoon.
Great. Thousands of Russians invading. Thousands dead. Cities being bombed into rubble. Here we go again. My cynical side’s first reaction to this is ... where are the jihadis in all of this? Because you know that they’re there. Probably in the “semi-autonomous” “breakaway province” of Ossetia, encouraged their cousins across the border in Russia to break away too.
McCain tells the commies to get the hell out. Obama wants everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbayah. The UN is useless as always of course.
Georgia is a US military ally. They are fighting with us in Iraq. I’ve read that we had 1000 US Marines in Georgia last month.
I don’t know this part of the world and I don’t know what the situation there is and I don’t know the history of the area at all. But I’m sure I’ll soon be as expert as anyone else if this keeps going for another week. Assuming of course that Russia doesn’t take over the entire country in a week. To protect it’s gas pipeline you know. Yeah, that’s a great reason to start a war. Oh Canada, how’s our pipeline doing up there in your country? Just kidding.
UPDATE: a little background info on South Ossetia. “It’s basically 75,000 people living on rocks”. South Ossetia is separated from North Ossetia by the Caucus Mountains, which are several kilometers tall. There is one road that connects North and South, and it is often closed due to weather. When it snows (and it always snows) there is no way into or out of South Ossetia. Great place to live it seems. Not.
The fighting continues. 2 Russian jets shot down. Military air bases in city of Tibilisi bombed.
Almost live-blogging the war from inside.
Notes for the globally challenged: Georgia sits between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. It is northeast of Turkey. Turkey is north of Syria. Georgia is north of Armenia and northwest of Azerbaijan. Those two countries are north of the northwest corner of Iran. North of Georgia is Russia, and the Ossetia area is along the border between them. To the east of the Caspian Sea lie “the -stans”. Georgia isn’t the end of the earth, but you can almost see the borders from there.
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Tuesday - July 29, 2008
tourist attraction bans English visitors in revenge for 1298 battle .
GEE, TALK ABOUT NOT LETTING GO.
I wasn’t certain of the category at first. Wasn’t sure how to take it. Was it tongue in cheek? Just a gag? But apparently some folks really do take this very much to heart. Don’t guess it pleases the English much but they take this sort of thing in stride. And of course, it’s more then likely all Bush’s fault.
Scottish tourist attraction bans English visitors in revenge for 1298 battle
A popular Scottish tourist attraction provoked outrage by banning English visitors and destroying ‘English’ items such as bone china and the works of Shakespeare.
By Simon Johnson
Last Updated: 7:59AM BST 22 Jul 2008The Edinburgh Dungeon said the one-day event is in revenge for the Battle of Falkirk, fought 710 years ago July 21st, at which more than 2,000 Scots were slaughtered by the Auld Enemy.
English visitors will only be allowed entry if they sign a scroll swearing allegiance to Scotland, while those from other countries will be encouraged to bring in items deemed ‘typically English’ to be smashed.
The attraction, which is visited by 200,000 people per year insisted the measures were a fitting tribute to the Scots soldiers who were killed and their leader, William Wallace.
But it faces a growing backlash from English tourists appalled that they were being singled out for something that happened so long ago.
Victoria Price, 26, from Manchester, currently holidaying in Edinburgh, said: “I was planning to visit the Dungeon because I had heard it was fun. But I wouldn’t give them my money now.
“The Battle of Falkirk was more than 700 years ago for Heaven’s sake. It should be put in the past, but it seems some people find that very hard.”
King Edward I, known as the Hammer of the Scots, decided to crush them in revenge for Wallace’s victory at Stirling Bridge in 1297 and assembled a massive army of more than 20,000 men.
In the battle, on July 22 1298, Wallace’s army of only around 6,000 men was destroyed by Edward’s longbows, although at the cost of almost 2,000 English casualties.
The attraction has a feature about Wallace, in which a ghost of the legendary Scots leader urges Scots to fight on against the invading “tyrannical” English.
Played by John Smeaton, one of the heroes who prevented last year’s terror attack at Glasgow Airport, he tells how thousands of Scottish soldiers were massacred.
Ian Scouller, the Dungeon’s manager, said: “People, not just from Scotland but from all over the world, said we should do something to commemorate that battle and get a bit of revenge.
“One visitor said we should mark the day by banning the English. We welcome more than 600 visitors every day. Many of them are English, and I expect we will take a hit in the pocket.”
But he claimed that Wallace and the Scots soldiers who fell that day would approve, adding: “The only way the English will be allowed in is if they sign a scroll pledging allegiance to Scotland - the kind of thing Edward I routinely did to Scots.”
Mr Scouller, a Glaswegian, also detailed another way for Scots to “gain revenge”.
He said: “People are invited to bring scones, tea bags, English literature, fine bone china or anything else typically English. We plan to smash them with a sword like the one Wallace carried.”
David Ross, Convener of the Society of William Wallace, described the ban on English visitors as “comical” and praised the Dungeon for marking the battle.
He added: “I’m sure it is meant tongue in cheek, but the English did far worse things to the Scots in Wallace’s time.”
The Edinburgh Dungeon is one of Edinburgh’s five most popular tourist attractions and is part of a chain, with other branches in London, York, Hamburg and Amsterdam.
In addition to its Wallace feature, exhibits include a torture chamber with thumb-screws, flesh tearers and head crushers, once used in Scotland to punish criminals.
Visitors also hear tales of some of Scotland’s most macabre criminals including notorious body snatchers Burke and Hare and cannibal Sawney Bean.
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Monday - July 14, 2008
Taliban fighters penetrate US Afghanistan base
I haven’t a clue how or even if the Taliban stories are making the news back home in USA. Over here, there have been some rather major stories with regard to how sophisticated the Taliban have become. Their weapons still aren’t up to ours of course, but according to sources here, they are fighting smarter then they have in the past. The Taliban say one thing they have plenty of is time. And apparently recruits.
Lets not get too complacent or as bad, too Nazi like in our thinking. And by that I mean, lets not start to believe that because they are the enemy they aren’t without some smarts. Or that they’ll be easily defeated simply because we feel superior in so many areas.
Tell ya somethin’ else you all already know. You don’t see any public protests in that world undermining the Taliban fighter. And they are very aware of the folks here in the homeland (USA/UK) and the celebrities who say the war is not only illegal but criminal as well. (referring to Iran) But they carry over that sentiment to their area of Afghanistan. They firmy believe that all they have to do is NOT QUIT. Because they have lots of friends in the West.
Taliban fighters penetrate US Afghanistan base to kill nine American troops By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 9:54AM BST 14/07/2008Taliban fighters breached the defence lines of a small US outpost in eastern Afghanistan in a well-planned attack that killed nine US soldiers, Nato officials have revealed.
The US base is located in Kunar province, a remote and mountainous region along the Pakistani borderAn official after-action briefing laid bare Nato commanders’ concerns over a “concerted” attempt to overrun the forward operating base by staging a mass attack involving hundreds of Taliban.
The fighters forced their way into the base during the assault, which was launched before dawn and continued late into the afternoon.
Scores of Taliban were killed after Nato called in attack helicopters and fixed-wing fighter jets to defend the base.
“It was a complex attack, well organised and planned,” said Captain Michael Finney, spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
“It was clear they wanted to overrun the combat outpost. They chose their positions well. It wasn’t just an attempt to rush the gate.”
The base, manned by the Afghan army and the US-led ISAF, is located in the mountainous and thickly-forested Pech Valley district of Kunar province, the most lethal region in Afghanistan for American soldiers.
As well as the nine US troops killed in the battle, 15 more were wounded along with four Afghan soldiers.
The sophistication of the attack is a fresh indication of the growing strength of the Taliban and its allies in the area.
The attackers were confident enough to warn local villagers to evacuate during the night.
The area has been described as a key staging area in the hunt for al-Qa’eda leader Osama bin Laden, which has intensified in recent weeks.
News of the attack came during a bloody day for Afghanistan. A suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up in a bazaar in southern Afghanistan, killing 24 people and injuring dozens more.
A man with bombs strapped to his body rammed his motorcycle into a police vehicle at a busy intersection in Uruzgan province, 250 miles southwest of Kabul, killing shopkeepers and young boys selling cigarettes by the side of the road.
The blast came as Nato and Afghan security forces battled militants on several fronts, with the US-led coalition announcing it had killed at least 40 insurgents in an ongoing operation in the volatile southern province of Helmand.
One soldier from the coalition was killed in a bomb blast in Helmand, taking to 133 the number of international troops to lose their lives in Afghanistan this year.
Recent weeks have seen a spike in attacks by militants, most of whom, Afghan officials claim, are recruited and trained in neighbouring Pakistan.
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Permalink • Wednesday - July 02, 2008
Battle of Trafalgar log offers insight into Nelson’s victory
Wish I could own that log. Hate to see the price as low as it is. I guess maybe this bit of history means more to me. I hope a foreigner doesn’t buy it. It should stay in England.
Can you imagine that generation playing the silly ass games they do today. I mean for example, apologizing for everything any Brit ever did and making nice to ppl who are sworn to kill em. Man, that was an England to be proud of warts and all.
Battle of Trafalgar log offers insight into Nelson’s victory
by Nick Britten
Last Updated: 3:26PM BST 02/07/2008Describing the scene in the hours ahead of the battle, Hargood noted the fight would take place in “light airs and hazy weather, with heavy swell”.
He later wrote: “At daylight we saw the enemy’s fleet bearing east nine miles, consisting of 33 sail of the line, five frigates and two sloops.
“5.40: Answered the general signal to form the order of sailing. 6.00: Answered the general signal to bear up and sail large and prepare for battle.
“Made all sail, bearing down on the enemy. Answered the general telegraph signal from Lord Nelson that England expected every man to do his duty.”
Of the actual battle, he kept his entries brief and clinical.
He wrote: “12.08: commenced fire on the enemy. 12.10: Cut the stern of a Spanish 80-gun ship.
“1.30: Heavy fire on both sides. Our ship became totally unmanageable. Most of the sails and rigging being cut away.
“3.15: One of our ships passed our bow and took the fire of an enemy’s ship. 3.25: The Swiftsure passed our stern and cheered us.” Describing the end of battle, which claimed 449 British fatalities, including Nelson, he wrote: “The action ceased. People were employed securing the guns, cleaning and pumping ship. Strong gales and squally at the end.”
The Belleisle was second into battle, closely following the flagship HMS Royal Sovereign into enemy lines, and in the very thick of the action, at one time firing at the Fougueux and the Santa Ana simultaneously.
Despite capturing the Argonauta, the Belleisle was eventually dismasted with 33 dead and 93 wounded, but kept flying her flag for 45 minutes until other vessels came to her rescue.
Hargood, the son of a humble purser, survived the battle and was later made an admiral to cap a distinguished naval career.
The log, dated October 21 1805 and verified by the National Manuscripts department at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, will be auctioned later this month and is expected to fetch £800.
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Permalink • Wednesday - June 25, 2008
HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD !
Lockheed During WWII
During World War II the Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant to protect it from Japanese air attack.
Gotta hand it to Hollywood set designers as well. Just something of interest that isn’t politics or crime.
Lockheed During W.W.II This is pretty neat--special effects during the 1940’s:
They covered it with camouflage netting to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air.
BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS.
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Permalink • Sunday - June 08, 2008
Vikings 15, Towely-Ban 0
Just checking the latest scores from Afghanistan ...
Rats. It turns out this video is quite a few months old already. Still, it’s nice to see something from one of our allies over there. I betcha the MSM could run videos like this just about every day if they wanted to. After all, Afghanistan isn’t the “unilateral” BushCo ware that Iraq is, right?
Ok, this one is a bit more recent. Nice soundtrack. Good pics of the Danes in and around Helmund, doing their part. And paying the prices, sadly.
via Malkin via Gates of Vienna.
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Monday - May 26, 2008
Sex change Paratrooper wins £250,000 for ‘hurt feelings’
Hurt Feelings get ya half a million bucks?
Brit GIs don’t get that for losing limbs. Something wrong with that I think.
By Andy Bloxham
Last Updated: 2:08PM BST 25/05/2008A former paratrooper who had a sex change operation has won a payout of £250,000 for hurt feelings after she was ordered to wear a man’s uniform to a medical examination.
Jan Hamilton, 43, used to be Captain Ian Hamilton and served in Bosnia and Afghanistan and was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
She then began gender reassignment surgery and claimed she made repeated requests to discuss the transition with her superiors.
However, Miss Hamilton said she was summoned to attend a compulsory medical examination in April 2007 while wearing her male uniform.
A £45,000-a-year job as the head of Army media relations in Gibraltar was then withdrawn, which she claimed was as a result of her sex change.
Miss Hamilton, who had refused to attend the medical, began legal action against the Ministry of Defence for sexual discrimination and unfair dismissal.
She said: “It would have been humiliating and demeaning for me to turn up for my medical examination dressed in a man’s uniform.”
The MoD then decided to pay her the £250,000 in an out-of-court settlement.
The size of the payout is likely to anger campaigners for better compensation for those injured in the line of duty.
According to current MoD settlements, soldiers receive £57,000 for the loss of a leg and £285,000 for the loss of both arms or legs.
Miss Hamilton said: “I’m now looking forward to a future outside the Parachute Regiment.”A spokesman for the MoD said: “Jan Hamilton has decided to bring her service with the armed forced to an end and is pursuing other career opportunities.”
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Tuesday - April 22, 2008
Michael Yon: Moment Of Truth In Iraq
You shall cross the barren desert, but you shall not die of thirst.
You shall wander far in safety though you do not know the way.
You shall speak your words in foreign lands and all will understand.
You shall see the face of God and live.
Be not afraid. I go before you always;
Come follow me, and I will give you rest.
From a prayer card I found on a base in Anbar Province Iraq
Baqubah Iraq, June 19, 2007: By the time you read these words, we will be in combat. Few ears have heard even rumors of this battle, and fewer still are the eyes that will see its full scope. Even now - for the battle has already begun for some - little news of it reaches home. I have known of the plans for a month, but have remained silent.
Thus opens Michael Yon’s new book, Moment of Truth In Iraq. Amazon is selling them; the book rocketed up their bestseller list to #8 in just a few days until it sold out. Not to worry, they’ll get more. I got mine today, so if you don’t hear much from me over the next few days you’ll know why. I’ve been following Yon’s posts - dispatches he calls them - from Iraq for several years now. Just like many of you have. This book does not appear to be a glue-up of his posts; it’s new writing.
From the jacket flap:
Brutalized by Saddam for decades, Iraqis hungered for strength entwined with justice and tempered by mercy. The American soldier delivered.
...
But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic or a school or a neighborhood. They learned the American soldier is not only the most dangerous man in the world, but the best man too.
via BlackFive I learn that the NY Post has done a review of the book too, written by JR Michael, the milblogger from over at Mudville Gazette:
“We can win this war,” Yon declares. “And if we do it will be a victory of the same magnitude as the fall of the Soviet Union. It will not be a victory for the Republican Party. It will not be a victory for America and Great Britain and others ‘against’ Iraq. It will be a victory for freedom and justice. It will be a victory for Iraqis and for the world, and only then will it be a victory for us.”
I’ve got reading to do.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/22/2008 at 03:03 PM
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Permalink • Wednesday - April 16, 2008
Imperialist Justice?
The U.S. military has released Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after holding him for more than two years. Hussein was handed over to AP colleagues on Wednesday in Baghdad.
The U.S. military accused Hussein of links to insurgents. But an Iraqi judicial panel this month dismissed all allegations against Hussein and ordered his release. A U.S. military statement on Monday said Hussein is no longer considered a threat.
Hussein and the AP strongly denied any improper contacts by the 36-year-old photographer, saying he was doing the normal work of a photographer in a war zone. Hussein was detained by U.S. Marines on April 12, 2006 in Ramadi.
See? Look how fair they’re being. After catching this guy bang on, working for the terrorists, the military has let him go. Because the Iraqis said he was innocent. So there. Look how we even respect the judicial jurisdiction of this other country we’re “occupying”. Such a bunch of Imperialists we is. On the other hand, he did spend the last two full years in jail. Nobody is saying whether he had to wear undies on his head and then take his own picture doing so. And it’s highly likely that all the insurgents he was linked to are now dead. Oh well.
I’m sure the left will make a big deal out of this. Oh, the bad US, illegally taking this guy prisoner, keeping him in jail all this time, boo hoo hoo. And now we’ll get another round of the old “deliberately tageting reports” crap, even from FoxNews. You know what any other country would have done with this guy? Accidentally shot him on sight. Oops, sorry, casualty of war. And that’s all they’d say if the body ever turned up. Which it might not have. Because a guy with a camera and a data link working for the other side is a spy, and spies get shot during war time. So consider yourself lucky Bilal. You’re the Hussein that got to live.
UPDATE
I missed it. Ooops. Sorry, but I just haven’t been paying much attention to this story over the past year. As pointed out at Malkin, LGF, and LawHawk, Bilal was released under the Iraq General Amnesty law, which is one of those Benchmarks you always hear the Dems yaddering on about. Revisiting the above link ... there’s a whole story there now, now that the VRWC blogosphere has ripped the AP a new one for ‘accidently’ forgetting to mention this. In other words, the charges against this guy were dropped to play nice-nice with Iraq, and to show that the Amnesty benchmark is working. From the new version of the above article, this snippet is buried halfway down:
Two judicial amnesty committees had ruled in recent days that there would be no trial on any of the accusations raised again Hussein. After confirming those decisions, the U.S. military’s detention command said Monday it no longer deemed Hussein a security threat and he would be freed.
U.S. military investigators had asserted that Hussein had links to insurgents and was found in possession of bomb-making materials when he was detained April 12, 2006. In December, military authorities referred Hussein’s case into the Iraqi court system for possible trial.
In February, the Iraqi parliament enacted a U.S.-backed amnesty law in a step toward national reconciliation. In separate rulings on Sunday and last week, the two Iraqi judicial panels granted Hussein amnesty, which drops the case and assumes no finding of guilt or innocence.
So, guilty as charged, but if you don’t charge him, he walks. The US made Iraq put such a law in place. Iraq then used the law. Bilal walks. If he turns out to be a terrorist, both countries can lay the blame on each other. Pretty slick, huh?
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Wednesday - March 19, 2008
small raid in afghanistan yields hundreds of anti-american AP photos
KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. forces searching for bomb makers raided Afghan homes near the border with Pakistan early Wednesday, exchanging gunfire with militants. Six people were killed, including two children and a woman, Afghan officials said.
The U.S.-led coalition said its forces were searching compounds in Khost province for a militant named Bismullah who organized roadside bomb attacks and smuggled weapons. Militants shot at the troops, who returned fire and killed “several militants,” including Bismullah and Rahim Jan, another man suspected of making bombs, the coalition said.
A woman and two children were among six people killed, said Khibar Pashtun, a spokesman for the Khost governor.
The coalition statement said a woman and a child who were in one of the buildings from which militants were shooting were killed.
So in four paragraphs and a headline, AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer, tells us at least three times that a few civilians got caught in the crossfire.
It is regrettable that militants continue to place innocent lives at risk simply to further their own agendas,” Maj. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for the coalition, said in a statement.
Yes it is regrettable. Moral of the story: don’t let the bombers set up housekeeping in your living room. Heck, kick them out of your village entirely.
The raid began just after midnight and lasted about an hour, said Mirza Gul, a villager from Hom in Khost province. Angry villagers had gathered at daybreak, chanting anti-U.S. slogans, he said.
He said one of the men killed used to work as a border policeman patrolling the region in between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Yep, those angry villagers again. Angry that a few local heroes martyrs insurgents terrorist boyos got their 72 raisins a little early, even though they were bravely hiding behind granny and a couple of toddlers. And, gee, duh, the local copper was playing both sides. I’m just shocked, shocked at that one.
The governor of Khost province, Arsallah Jamal, has previously called on U.S. forces to seek Afghan assistance before launching nighttime raids, saying Afghans would be in a position to ”reduce mistakes.”
Going back as far as 2002, President Hamid Karzai has publicly and repeatedly accused the U.S. of heavy-handedness in its counterterrorism operations. The U.S. has said over the years that it has modified tactics to cut down on civilian deaths.
Yeah right. “Reduce mistakes”. By not taking any action at all. Because they’re all innocent victims you know. Especially the bomb makers.
Gul said villagers were contemplating carrying the bodies of the dead from the village to Khost, the provincial capital, to protest to the governor and U.S. forces stationed there.
For their sake, I hope it’s a 5 day walk to Khost. And that they have nice warm sunny weather the whole trip.
If you follow the link you’ll get the story, along with a link to 365 recent pictures from Afghanistan. At least 5 of them do not mention that 3 civilians were killed in this raid. Many show some local dude showing off “bullet holes” in the front of his mud and thatch hut. The rest show either the casket of a fallen Canadian soldier being loaded on a plane, or tell us how almost all the heroin in the world comes from Afghanistan and that’s what nearly all the farmers grow. Bias? What bias?
Posted by Drew458
on 03/19/2008 at 09:25 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - March 12, 2008
New Yon - go read it
Ok, Ok, I’m late for the party again. You’ve all probably read Michael Yon’s latest Discpatch from Iraq, Guitar Heroes that went up two days ago. It’s hard for me to be everywhere at once, but I try. So go and read it. It’s a great story of aerial swordfighting, our guys in helicopters against the Jihad Moes in the sandbox in and around Mosul. Pretty damned excellent job our Air Cav troops are doing, though I wish they had something a tiny bit more substantial than unarmored Kiowas and tiny Hellfire missiles to fight with.
For you gearheads ... here’s a photolink to the gunships 
and another photolink to the Hellfire missile 
they’re using.
Mr. C. and I have been talking about that “more substantial” part, what with the Air Force being in the news quite a bit these past few days. Read Yon’s article and you’ll see that the downside to fighting a super precision war is using minimalist weapons, barely big enough to get the job done. A risk I don’t think we should be forcing our troops to take. I think it would be better, and probably a lot cheaper, to use more basic munitions that pack a bigger wallop. ("But what about collateral damage?” “Hey, almost no buildings within 100 yards of the target were destroyed. And PS - it’s a WAR, remember?") You’ll also notice that the M-4 “poodleshooter” carbine isn’t quite up to the task either.
Posted by Drew458
on 03/12/2008 at 05:49 PM
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