Sunday, October 26, 2003
THE DIRTY NUKE - WHAT IT IS AND ISN'T
The Washington Post published an article by staff writer Jo Warrick back on March 18, 2002, discussing the potential danger posed by old Soviet RTGs (Radiothermal Generators) falling into the hands of terrorists. Warrick's thesis is that strontium-90, which is used to power some of these RTGs, could be used in the construction of dirty bombs - conventional bombs that are wrapped in a layer of radioactive material, so when they explode, they spread a layer of radioactive contamination over a wide...
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Thursday, October 23, 2003
THE ECONOMICS OF DEMINING DEFINES SUCCESS AND FAILURE
Over 100 million land mines lay scattered across the world. Every week, 200 more innocent people die or suffer severe injury when they encounter these hidden menaces; many are children. Short of probing every square inch of every acre by hand, how can we rid the land of these war leavings? And what does it cost? There is a broad range of effective demining equipment under development today with a surprisingly wide range of development and operating costs: The Swedish Bofors Mine-Guzzler is a...
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Tuesday, October 21, 2003
WE HAVE A SITUATION HERE, MR. PRESIDENT!
What in the world is happening to our sick and wounded from the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq? News articles in recent weeks have revealed multiple incidents where military personnel have been warehoused in holding facilities awaiting treatment or ignored altogether by the DoD and Department of Veterans Affairs. Here’s the official rhetoric. CBS News reported on June 3 the Pentagon has ordered health screenings for every soldier, sailor, Marine and airman sent into the Iraq war, in an...
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Friday, October 17, 2003
And From Iraq, the Good News Is …
In a stunning example of official ineptitude, an Army battalion commander disseminated a sample letter-to-the-editor to soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 503 rd Infantry Regiment. They were supposed to use the letter as a guide for their personal version that would then be sent home for possible publication in their local newspapers. According to Gannett News Service on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2003, eleven identical letters originating from the 503 rd appeared in newspapers across the country. As...
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Friday, October 10, 2003
A Nuclear-Armed Iraq Must Be the Next Target - From 12/12/01
(This article was FIRST published on December 12, 2001. It is important that you read it within this context, BUT also keep in mind that to date we have not found any nuclear weapons in Iraq, nuclear weapons that almost certainly were there as late as 1998. WHERE ARE THEY NOW? WHO HAS THEM NOW?) Even before the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan had routed the Taliban regime from physical control of the country and isolated the al Qaeda terrorists in their caves, a debate arose within the...
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Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Our media jihadis - I DID NOT write this one either, BUT READ IT ANYWAY!
(Bret Stephens is the Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post, a world class newspaper that has been in publication since 1932) Oct. 4, 2003 Our media jihadis By BRET STEPHENS So here's the question of the week, month; year: After Iraq, will the media ever again allow a democracy to topple a fascist dictatorship? The question isn't mine but John Reid's. On March 31 at nine o'clock in the morning, the Labour Party Chairman was in 10 Downing Street watching the TV news. On screen were pictures of...
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Sunday, October 5, 2003
Clark: Dark Horse or Clinton ‘Stalking Horse’?
(I DID NOT write this, but YOU should read it!) Clark: Dark Horse or Clinton ‘Stalking Horse’? By Paul Connors With his official announcement that he is a candidate for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in the 2004 election, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark became the 10th person seeking to unseat President Bush. Within a week of his announcement, his poll figures placed him ahead of the party leadership’s (read Bill and Hillary and party Chairman Terry McAuliffe) least-favored...
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Thursday, October 2, 2003
Should I be surprised...
...at how MUCH most of you seem to care about who is where on BN, and how LITTLE most of you seem to care about whether or not you will be killed tomorrow by Islamist Terrorists, whether or not we will go to war in Iran, what is happening in Iraq, what we will do about our future power needs, and whether or not the Sky is Falling? I know I have some loyal (?) readers, and I thank you. My BN position doesn't matter to me, except as an indication that my information is getting out to more readers....
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Wednesday, October 1, 2003
A NUCLEAR IRAN—THE "MAD" HATTER’S DANCE
As reported in August by The Muslim News, an online newspaper aimed at English speaking Muslims in England and world wide, Iran is fully justified in its quest for nuclear weapons, because it faces “a perilous future of being enveloped by unfriendly states, beholden to U.S. interests.” According to The Muslim News: …it is clear that developing nuclear weapons is in the national interests of Tehran. While Tehran cannot openly develop nuclear weapons -- due to the international outcry it would...
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Sunday, September 28, 2003
AIRIPORT SECURITY - AN UPDATE
With the recent congressional action on the Department of Homeland Security, national attention has once again turned to airport security, all the more so since the deadline for checking all baggage has now passed. News accounts continue to be full of airlines requesting more time to meet this deadline, citing lack of equipment, funds and personnel. This is no new issue. Three times in the past 24 months I have examined the state of airline security in the wake of 9/11 and our ability set up...
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Friday, September 26, 2003
ANOTHER NEWS FLASH!!! EVEN THE DEMOCRATS AGREE!!
Rep. Jim Marshall, D-GA, is a member of the House Armed Service Committee. During service in combat in Vietnam as a Ranger reconnaissance-platoon sergeant, he received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. This column was originally published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and was republished with permission in DefenseWatch on Sept. 23. On Sept. 14, I flew from Baghdad to Kuwait with Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg from Dearborn, Mich. He was in a body bag. He’d been ambushed and killed that...
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NEWS FLASH!! SENIOR CHIEF ART MESSER IS REAL!
The DefenseWatch editorial staff has determined that Navy SeaBee Senior Chief Art Messer is real and his report from Iraq is genuine!
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Thursday, September 25, 2003
A Unified Korea in 60 Days
The Bush Administration experienced a major diplomatic triumph last month when Pyongyang agreed to multi-lateral talks with the United States and four other nations – China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea – instead of the bilateral talks it had insisted upon. This success, which followed an offer by Beijing to host the multilateral meeting, seemed to say the choice to follow diplomacy instead of force was the correct choice. The actual triumph, in my view, was that for the first time in a formal...
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Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Terror in the Sky - the Manpad Threat
Here is the next face of international terrorism. On Nov. 17, 1995, at 10:20 p.m., Lufthansa Flight 405 and British Airways Flight 226 were flying 30 to 40 miles apart on parallel paths towards Europe, having just taken off from Kennedy International Airport. Suddenly, without warning an object moving in the opposite direction passed 2,000 to 3,000 feet to the left and above the British Airways plane, and shortly thereafter it passed the Lufthansa plane. Both pilots reported that the object...
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Sunday, September 21, 2003
Either You’re with Us, or …
This article was published on March 12, 2003--BEFORE we went to war against Iraq. Read it in that context... Shortly after 9/11, President Bush spoke to the nation. One phrase has been repeated around the globe since then. He said, speaking to the nations of the world: “Either you’re with us, or …. ” And here, almost everybody got it completely wrong. President Bush did not finish his phrase with: “ … or you’re against us.” What the president said was: “Either you’re with us, or you’re with...
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Thursday, September 11, 2003
If you want to understand the other guys...
...Read the sequence of comments about my post: Poignant letter from the front.... The other guys of whom I write are those to whom I refer in my post: I Can See Clearly Now.
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Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Doing It Right - A Lesson From 9/11
Many of my posted articles aim to make a point, to correct a wrong, or to poke away at some bureaucratic stupidity. Today, I wish to tell you a story of how a group of guys did it right, the first time, under some pretty difficult circumstances. It was the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, off the coast of Alaska. The twin World Trade Center Towers had been hit. America was tottering towards a war footing without fully comprehending what or why. Across the continent, civilian aircraft were grounded....
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Monday, September 8, 2003
Poignant letter from the front...
I received this email in my capacity as a Senior Editor for DefenseWatch. The letter speaks for itself: An On Site Report By Senior Chief Art Messer - on the ground in Iraq I caught wind of and read the recent news articles being circulated back there in the states. I figured I could clarify some things for you. As usual the news media has blown some things way out of proportion. The countryside is getting more safe by the day despite all the attacks you are hearing about. Imagine every shooting...
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Thursday, September 4, 2003
The Facts About Depleted Uranium
The co-called controversy over bullets and armor plating made with Depleted Uranium (DU) has become the new rallying point for what I call the anti-nuclear coalition (ANC). The ANC is a loosely knit informal group of organizations that share several commonalities. Among these is a total rejection of anything nuclear. The ANC consists primarily of left-wing, pseudoscientific environmental organizations whose core membership draws on the disaffected fringe elements of our society. Unfortunately,...
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A Unified Korea in 60 Days
The Bush Administration experienced a major diplomatic triumph last week when Pyongyang agreed to multi-lateral talks with the United States and four other nations – China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea – instead of the bilateral talks it had insisted upon. This success, which followed an offer by Beijing to host the multilateral meeting, seemed to say the choice to follow diplomacy instead of force was the correct choice. The actual triumph, in my view, was that for the first time in a formal...
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