Actually, all the armed forces have exceeded expectations:

Active duty recruiting. All services exceeded their recruiting goals in February. The Navy’s recruiting goal was 2,593, and it enlisted 2,696 (104 percent). The Marine Corps’ goal was 1,661, and it recruited 1,734 (104 percent). The Air Force goal was 2,353, and it recruited 2,375 (101 percent). The Army's goal was 6,000, and it recruited 6,114 (102 percent).

Active duty retention. All services are projected to meet their retention (reenlistment) goals for the current fiscal year.

Reserve forces recruiting. Only two of the six reserve components met or exceeded their recruiting goals this month.

* Army National Guard: Goal: 6,536 Recruited: 6,583 (101 percent)
* Army Reserves: Goal: 2,359 Recruited: 2,279 (97 percent)
* Air National Guard: Goal: 772 Recruited: 680 (88 percent)
* Air Force Reserves: Goal: 490 Recruited: 573 (117 percent)
* Navy Reserves: Goal: 874 Recruited: 710 (81 percent)
* Marine Corps Reserves: Goal: 546 Recruited: 469 (86 percent)

The guard has come out of a three year slump to enlist a record number of recruits--the best in 13 years.

A driving force in this year's early success, Guard leaders say, is that thousands of Guard members have now returned from Iraq and are reaching out to friends, old classmates and co-workers -- widening the face-to-face contacts that officials say are critical to recruiting. Guard members "are staying with us and want to fill up units with their neighbors and friends," Blum said in an interview. "Now that they're back -- watch out."

The prospect of serving in a violent Iraq is still part of the equation for potential recruits, and Army officials say more frequent deployments have hurt recruitment for the active-duty Army, which began suffering shortfalls last year. The Guard has tried to address that concern by establishing a rotation cycle of one year abroad for every five years at home, which lends more predictability to the commitment, recruiters and military analysts say.

"Fear of the unknown hurts people. We want to take away the fear," said Maj. Kristine Wood, recruiting commander for West Virginia. Since 2004, the Guard has had nine brigades deployed in Iraq and elsewhere, but that will drop to two by year's end, officials say.

What is described as a "growing" number of ex-military critics has been joined by Major-General John Batiste, a military commander in Iraq and former aide to Paul Wolfowitz.

The ranks of Rumsfeld's critics were joined Wednesday by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who served as a division commander in Iraq and was a military aide to former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, a primary architect of the Iraq invasion.

Batiste said he believed Rumsfeld should resign, arguing that the Pentagon needed a new leader who could work with top officers "without intimidation."

In an interview, Batiste said negative feelings about Rumsfeld were widespread among generals he served with. He added that there was an almost universal belief that the secretary did not treat military leaders and their opinions with respect.

"It speaks volumes about the leadership climate within the Pentagon," Batiste said. "Civilian control is absolutely paramount, but in order for it to work, there is a two-way street of respect and dialogue that has to exist."

What? No criticism of the war in Iraq, just a concern that some generals may have had their feelings hurt?

At least Gregory Neubold parroted the left-wing talking points while incidentally blaming the Jews for all the problems in the middle-east.

These gentlemen join Paul D. Eaton, who wrote a critical editorial in the New York Times (where else?) and of course Anthony Zinni, who has been a standing critic of the war from the outset.

In reading their critiques, one thing becomes very clear--these are very political guys. Consider Eaton's view of Shinseki's alleged disrespectful treatment.

Only Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff when President Bush was elected, had the courage to challenge the downsizing plans. So Mr. Rumsfeld retaliated by naming General Shinseki's successor more than a year before his scheduled retirement, effectively undercutting his authority. The rest of the senior brass got the message, and nobody has complained since.

Who is Eaton criticizing here? Rumsfeld, for doing what any good manager would do--get rid of the personnel obstacles to the program, or the generals for valuing their careers more than then mission? Of course, this is simply Eaton's view of things, perhaps even sour grapes that his views found so little support among his colleagues. The irony of his comment is that if its as he says, Rumsfeld is the solution and the generals are the problem.

If the officer cadre are all a bunch of careerists rather than warriors, then its quite obvious to me that a little--no a lot, of butt-kicking is required.

Batiste's move over into the critics corner is particularly surprising because few officers would have had more opportunity to make their opinions known that he did, being as he was, directly involved with the war planning.

As the LA Times article points out, Shinseki is a touch stone for all of these dissident generals, and what it all really comes down to is the Powell doctrine, which was very good for the post-Vietnam military, but wasn't particularly good for the country and was made even more irrelevant in the post-9/11 world. The Powell doctrine was all about repairing a "broken" military, and it was an effective and necessary doctrine in its time. But a repaired military isn't a classic car in a dust-controlled garage--its a tool of foreign policy and the Powell doctrine had to be retired at some point.

Would we even be having this discussion if the Powell doctrine hadn't dictated that we let Iraq off the hook in the first Gulf war? Not much gets said about that.

The reality is that Rumsfeld is faced with a wholesale reform of the military and its missions and that will undoubtedly play havoc with the sensibilities of the old guard. So be it.

In my view, and I am only reading between the lines, the resignations and criticism is a sign of one of two things, or perhaps both similutaneously--the search for scapegoats for a mission expected to go badly, or a sign that Rumsfeld is winning the battle for reform. Some others seem to agree.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations at Boston University and a Vietnam veteran, said he believed it was unprecedented for retired senior officers who had so recently served during a war to criticize civilian leaders while troops were still in the field.

"I would take this as evidence that the search for scapegoats with regard to the Iraq war has now been fully engaged by the military," Bacevich said.

"The officer corps doesn't want to get stuck with responsibility for a war that has already proven to be a disappointment and could result in failure. This is an indication that Rumsfeld has been selected as the military's preferred scapegoat," he said.

Richard Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina who oversaw the work of H.R. McMaster of the controversial "Dereliction of Duty", acknowledges the point of the book--officers need to offer frank and strong criticism of civilian war plans when appropriate, but nevertheless points out that there is another side of that coin.

Nevertheless, Kohn, who has discussed relations with civilian leaders with several top officers, said he believed it might be dangerous for such recently retired generals to go public with such criticism.

"If they go out and attack the policy after leaving and they get personal about it, they're undermining civilian control," Kohn said.

Seems pretty personal to me.

Actually my Mom does like computers although she, like many other people of a certain age, are intimidated by the wrenching paradigm change computers and the internet represent. If you are say, under the age of 40, computers are simply a fact of life that we don't give a second thought. Just yesterday, my own mother needed to find a telephone number and was looking for a telephone book, which confused the hell out of my son who thinks--need a phone number--look it up on the internet.

My mom, who uses the web and email, tentatively perhaps, but optimistically, tells me that most people her age are simply bewildered by computers or actually fear them outright. Surprisingly, you don't have to be all that old to have a problem with the dang computer-thingy. My kids tell me that some of their friends don't have computers because their parents won't have them in the house--these are people in their forties and early fifties!

This however, is not a post about old people and their fear of a changing world.

Rather its about an officer cadre in the military who fear a changing world, because ultimately, when you really pay attention to what the retired military critics of the Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration are saying, it boils down to the "newfangled military doctrine".

I just erased a good portion of this post because I found someone who wrote a much better one.

Big Lizard's blogger Dafydd has posted about as good an exposition of the underlying problem in the military's officer corps as can be written.

Even before the Iraq War, Secretary Rumsfeld embarked upon a revolutionary reformation, not only of how we fight wars but also the entire organization of our military forces. He is pushing towards smaller units, more unit independence (moving command decisions down the ranks), much greater reliance on Special Forces, and a reorganization of units to be self-sufficient rather than specialized.

It's hardly surprising that some men who have invested so much of their lives in one particular way of running a war would be angry, rebellious, and confused by a completely different way of running a war... or that some of them would lash out at the symbol of that change. They are no different from vice presidents at General Motors or IBM who furiously denounce splitting those companies into self-reliant business units instead of the normal corporate divisions they've had for twenty years.

Read the whole thing...and embrace change.

Jed Babbin, former under-secretary of defense under the George H.W. Bush provides some unexpected but not surprising insights into the nature of the conflict between the small group of dissident generals currently critical of Donald Rumsfeld.

Shinseki balked at striking at the Taliban. For the record, our forces slashed into the Taliban around Oct. 5, 2001, less than a month after Sept 11. But — aside from Rangers and Army Special Forces — the Army stayed home. Shinseki wanted at least six months to assemble and move an enormous Soviet-like force into Afghanistan and the president wasn’t having any of it. This is why Shinseki retired in 2003 with a festering grudge against Rumsfeld.

And then Rumsfeld did the unthinkable. Instead of replacing Shinseki with one of his like-minded underlings, Rumsfeld looked for someone who would fight. Gen. Peter Schoomaker, a Special Forces vet, was brought out of retirement to transform the Army in the middle of a war. And he did it. But in the process Rumsfeld, Schoomaker and his team shook up a lot of people.

Pretty much the whole issue in a nutshell.

Stephen Bainbridge considers the morality of "strategic bombing".

Yet, two wrongs do not make a right. Even a just war must be fought justly. And we do the so-called greatest generation no service if we ignore their serious moral failings in this regard. The West, after all, is supposed to be the good guys.

It always disturbs me to hear war discussed in terms of "justice" and "morality" and "good". Aside from the tacit appeal to authority, the terms themselves don't really mean anything objective. The subjective judgment is implicit in these discussion--everyone gets to judge a war and its conduct by their personal "morality".

I see a few problems with Bainbridge's approach to the subject.

The current coda on military morality is the result of the military competition between European states, a rather narrow and largely irrelevant model for the modern world. The problem, as various potentates discovered, was that rapine and pillage tended to alienate the populations you were trying to absorb, rule and control. Frederick the Great was considered great because he managed to invade and hold Silesia (among other things). Machiavelli produced advice for his prince on when to use force and when to use restraint in order to achieve strategic goals. The Europeans learned that while war had utility, unrestricted savagery did not

That's not morality in the traditional sense, but it is "good" in the sense that you get what you want.

Herein lies the irony of "moral war"--its not about being "good guys", but getting to keep what you win. Ultimately, to win hearts and minds in Iraq, you have to kill your enemy, but as far as possible, only your enemy.

Which brings us to the central narrative of Bainbridge's post.

Historian Niall Ferguson has wrriten that:

... the destruction caused by the British and American air forces in their bombing campaigns against civilian populations in Germany and Japan is hardly something we can look back on with pride. Hamburg was destroyed in a firestorm code-named Operation Gomorrah; about 45,000 people died. Similar numbers perished when Dresden was bombed. Tokyo was literally incinerated in a raid that killed between 83,000 and 100,000 people — maybe more.

Such bombing was precisely what the U.S. State Department had denounced as "unwarranted and contrary to principles of law and humanity" in 1937, when the Japanese bombed Chinese cities. And it was precisely what Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill's predecessor as prime minister, had dismissed as "mere terrorism," to which "His Majesty's government [would] never resort."

As those refernces suggest, the greatest generation had doubts about the morality of the strategic bombing campaign even in the midst of the war. The British denied Bomber Harris a peerage in 1946 (although they did offer him one in 1951, which he refused), even though they gave peerages to virtually all of the UK's other major World War II commanders at that time. Bomber Command did not get a separate campaign medal. And so on.

Whether such doubts were widely held within the WWII generation is moot--did the bombing achieve its objective? Where there any perverse outcomes (i.e. an insurgency)? Its the utility stupid.

There is something else to consider, particularly within the historical context of Dresden or Hiroshima. What exactly is a "civilian" population? Prior to the French revolution, the business of war was a lot like it is now in the U.S.--practiced by a class within the larger population (25% of the U.S. military comes from Florida and Texas). You could surgically excise the military component from a society and enjoy what was left a la Frederick the Great.

With Napoleon, one sees something new--the mobilization of an entire population. In effect, there were no civilians in France since all elements in society served the war effort.

The model persisted in the U.S. until the 1970s and still does in places like North Korea (with millions under arms).

Dresden, Toyko and Hiroshima were terrible blows, but they were undertaken for legitimate strategic objectives, which is another way of saying that we did these things--to win.

I think that gets lost in these discussions of a "just" war. The parameters of the discussion suggest that we must not do certain things, as if a "noble loss" has its merits.

The reality is that our conduct of war should be judged by its outcomes--do we win?

I don't mean the battles, but the war, which almost always has to be viewed from a far longer perspective that people are used to. We generally consider the 1st and 2nd World Wars as distinct events, but the reality is that they were spasms of violence in the same centuries-old conflict. The war against Islamic radicalism has a similar dynamic--the Mujahdeen resistence to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is not an unrelated event to 9/11 or Iraq--the same historical forces are in play and will be until one force--democracy or Islamic radicalism, is finally defeated and discredited.

That's the "large" war, the one between two ideologies and it cannot be won by force of arms alone--Islamic radicalism must be defeated in much the same way communism was defeated--by discredited it.

Justification is besides the point really--9/11 demonstrated that the war is upon us. We do not get to decide whether we will participate or not. What's left to us is to understand the nature of the war and then to act in accordance with that understanding--not by an arbitrary and anachronistic moral code, but by a strategic vision informed by the true nature of the conflict.

The dichotomy between the two approaches to defining the "morality" of war, particularly the war in Iraq, is stark. From the liberal-left point of view, its simple--no WMD, no justification, hence the charge that Iraq is an "immoral" war. On the other hand, Islamic radicalism thrives in the hopeless environment of corruption and tribal politics pervading the middle eastern oligarchies and in the end, it is the environment itself which must be changed to drive a nail through the heart of Islamic radicalism.

How do you do that?

By encouraging democratic reform in anyway possible, including invasion when necessary and appropriate.

I've had private discussions trying to debunk the suitcase nuke myth--with mixed results. Richard Miniter gives it a shot.

Austin Bay interviews Donald Rumsfeld and we avoid the usual know-nothing chaff from the morons in the press corps.

Rumsfeld is in place for one overriding reason, and frankly the Iraq war is only peripheral to that mandate, yet I've never heard a mainstream media reporter ask any questions about how Rumsfeld is fundamentally restructuring the military to address 21st century realities.

The politically deft SecDef finessed the question -- and it was finesse, not dodge. The military jargon masked a heavy political hand grenade I was rolling toward the Beltway. You think Harry Reid's land deal or Mark Foley's messages are big stories? How about a stinging pre-election turf battle between Defense and the departments of State, Treasury, Justice, Commerce and Agriculture, complete with zinger accusations of who is or isn't contributing to the war effort?

I know, that's quite a claim, which is why I need to translate the mil-speak: Unified Action means coordinating and synchronizing every "tool of power" America possesses to achieve a political end -- like winning a global war for national survival against terrorists who hijack economically and politically fragile nations and provinces.

People understand the role of soldiers and cops in a war, but in 21st century wars where economic and political development are determinative, an arborist at the Department of Agriculture and a Commerce Department trade consultant can be powerful contributors to "Unified Action."

Restoring Iraqi agriculture provides an example. Saddam Hussein's economic and political policies damaged agriculture in the land that eight millennia ago spawned the Agricultural Revolution. (Heck of an achievement, huh?) Agriculture, Commerce and several NGOs have expertise and programs that are helping revive Iraqi farms. Still, problems occur when trying to tailor programs to meet specific local needs -- like, who pays for the program and who is ultimately in charge of oversight and coordination.

While serving in Iraq in 2004, I met a young U.S. Army captain who was running a successful small-scale date palm restoration project. What we really need are joint development and security teams, where agricultural and economic specialists work with that captain "in the field" on a sustained, day-to-day basis. We need to decide who is in charge of that team (the captain or the arborist?) and how we fund it.

Our system for "Unified Action" is still largely a Cold War, 20th century relic designed to prop up governments (so often corrupt and ill-led), instead of helping individuals and neighborhoods become economically self-sustaining and self-securing. Winning war in the Age of the Internet means improving neighborhoods and individual lives. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and micro-finance whiz Muhammad Yunus understands this.

Read the whole thing.

He was nearly Commander-In-Chief :

The Department of Defense released the name of Colonel Thomas H. Felts who was killed in a roadside bombing on November 14th, along with another soldier. It is unusual to see a Colonel listed as a casualty. More unusual still, Col Felts was assigned to the Command and General Staff College, School of Advanced Military Studies located in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Because of his rank, I suspect he was a student in the Advanced Operational Arts Studies Fellowship, an elite school for senior officers marked for advancement. The school’s web page includes this statement:

“ During year one, fellows follow a curriculum that includes graduate-level study of military art and science, visits to combatant and service component commands, guest speakers, and practical exercises in campaign and major operations planning” (emphasis added)

I don’t know Col Felt’s purpose in Iraq, but his death highlights the dedication military services have to understand and improve the way America fights. Too often detractors and supporters of the US efforts in Iraq use the throw-away statement “We’ve made mistakes prosecuting the war in Iraq” or something similar without ever thinking “Compared to what?” Our prosecution of the war has been very successful compared to past wars in terms of casualty rates and responsiveness to the enemy. Much of this is due to the advancements developed in war colleges of the Army and sister institutions in the Navy, Marines, and Air Force.

My condolences go out to the family of Colonel Felts.

Frederick Kagan wrote in the LA Times of the demise of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his "life’s work" (reprinted in the Deseret News yesterday). To channel Mark Twain “The rumors of [his] death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Kagan claims that Rumsfeld’s focus on leveraging technology to fight our wars with “lean and efficient” forces “has nearly lost the Iraq war”; instead he says we should have maintained and deployed a massive Army. He also took a swipe at the Air Force F-22 and the joint Air Force, Navy, and Marine F-35 fighter as expensive programs sucking away money “for armored vehicles, more body armor and more soldiers”. This piece has the hallmarks of inter-service warfare with an incoming round from the Army and sure enough a Google search revealed Mr. Kagan is a former West Point Professor of History. [Disclosure -I’m a 20 year veteran of the Air Force].

Kagan ignores a salient point: the military budget may be big, but it isn’t endless. You can have a large standing army or you can have a technological edge with the price of a smaller force. Pick one.

At one time Saddam had the fourth largest army in the world. I don’t think lack of body armor was their problem.

Kagan ignores what it would have been like for the Army and Marines to have taken Baghdad without the advantages of technology, not just within their own weaponry, but also with support from that pesky, technological advanced Air Force. The Army has to go back almost fifty years to find an incident where their troops were actually attacked by enemy aircraft.

Rumsfield is also derided for being committed “to transforming the military to meet undefined future threats, spending billions of dollars preparing to fight Enemy X in 2025.” Kagan fails to note the irony that in 2003 Rumsfield was facing the Enemy X of his previous tour of duty as Defense Secretary in 1977. And in 1977, Iraq was about as undefined an Enemy X as you could get.

There are more technologically advanced enemies than Iraq. Several may even be able to conscript large forces. In 2025, when we are engaged with the new Enemy X, Kagan might be writing about the foresight of a previous Secretary of Defense that ensured the troops had something more to rely on then good body armor.

The U.S. is deploying more troops to Korea! Isn’t that what you would think reading this Yahoo News headline “US activists’ protests larger SKorea bases”? The AFP story, however, is about Cindy Sheehan and company protesting the displacement of villages to accommodate base expansions of troops relocating within Korea.

Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, a US women's peace organization, said: "There is no way that I feel my family will be more secure or that Korean families will feel more secure by expanding the Camp Humphreys base (in Pyeongtaek) and taking land from people who have farmed there for generations."

Medea fails to mention the three year farming hiatus in the early fifties or how generational family farms are fairing north of the DMZ.

Since this story is all about Cindy and the Code Pinkos, AFP fails to mention why the troops are relocating. For starters most of this realignment is to move the U.S. Second Infantry Division off the DMZ to bases 45 and 180 miles South of Seoul. That makes them a little more difficult for the North Koreans to attack them. It also serves to keep our troops out of the North Korea's face – theoretically a non-threatening posture (theoretically because I don’t know what is going on between the ears of “Dear Leader”) But Cindy isn’t having any of this protect the troops stuff here.

Cindy might be surprised to know that in 2003 Donald Rumsfeld initially proposed removing 40% of the nearly 30,000 U.S. troops stationed in Korea by 2005. Surprisingly this did not go over well with the newly elected South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun who happened to run on an anti-U.S platform (file under “be careful what you ask for – you might get it”). It was Roh’s government that brokered an alternate withdrawal. Part of that plan is to relocate U.S. forces further south and it delays the troop withdrawals to 2008.

The need for U.S. troops in Korea has diminished, partly because the South Koreans are strong enough to handle most of their security needs. Partly because North Korea's ground forces aren't considered as capable as they once were. Perhaps Cindy and crew are protesting now while there are still U.S. troops in Korea to protest.

Finally, take a look at that sign in the accompanying photo (h/t Powerline). Looks like the women holding it wants to crawl under a rock.

You know this was coming sooner or later...

Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter vetoed plans to commission the Makin Island, the Navy's newest and most powerful warship, in San Francisco in 2008 because of a perception that the city is anti-military.

Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. J. Michael Myatt, chairman of a high-powered committee that was to support a commissioning ceremony for the Makin Island, said he has been informed that the ship would not be commissioned in San Francisco, as scheduled, but in San Diego.

Myatt said he had been told that the Navy was concerned about San Francisco's refusal to provide a homeport for the retired battleship Iowa, which would be turned into a museum, and for the city school board's decision to abolish junior ROTC training in San Francisco high schools.

One of the factors that turned the Pentagon against San Francisco, he said, was widely quoted anti-military remarks made by various city politicians. Some of the remarks got considerable attention, especially ones made by Gerardo Sandoval, a member of the Board of Supervisors, who was quoted on national television as saying national defense should be left to "the cops and the Coast Guard.''

The Makin Island is a helicopter assault ship and a big one at that--so big that it can't fit through the Panama Canal and thus has to go around South America to join the third fleet.

Lots of complaints from San Francisco:

"Bringing this ship here is a great opportunity to showcase what great people we have in the military. Instead, they are trying to poke a stick in the eye of local politicians. I think it is shortsighted.''

Is he possibly suggesting that local politicians don't enjoy popular support? That San Francisco isn't a hotbed of anti-military sentiment?

San Francisco politicians are extraordinarily small-minded, morally-stunted and petty specimens and frankly there is no reason for the military to have to endure their insults and disrespect. I think if it were me, I would discontinue all extracurricular military activity in San Francisco (including Fleet Week) until I got an apology from the ungrateful wretches on the city council.

Robert Gates, the new defense secretary, sailed thru Senate confirmaton hearings yesterday. If I were a fighter in Iraq, I'd notice these clips from Gates:

+ It's "to soon to tell" whether the US invasion of Iraq had been a wise decision.
+ "Do you believe we are currently winning in Iraq?" "No, sir."
+ Iran is too dangerous to take on because it can activate terrorism.
+ He says he is not familiar with the details of Rumsfeld's efforts to transform the military.

The appended ifs and buts and afterthoughts aren't worth a lot.

Bush has fired a fighter and hired a defeat manager. Our soldiers see it, their soldiers see it. We see it, they see it. In the end, I bet, America will fight like America. For now God help good men in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Lebanon and Israel.

James Taranto prints some barely intelligible letters from some soldiers who apparently didn't work hard in school.

You might be aware of the Air Force’s missions in Air and Space but did you know their mission statement also includes fighting war in Cyberspace?

Last month the Air Force announced the 8th Air Force would become the new Cyberspace Command. A numbered Air Force is one level below a Major Command, such as Air Combat Command, and is headed by a three star general. Designating the 8th Air Force for this command is significant. It is the most powerful offensive air arm in the Air Force since it controls the Air Force bomber fleet; additionally the 8th Air Force is also home for Air Force reconnaissance aircraft.

Since 1993, though, the 8th Air Force has also operated the 67th Information Operations Wing. Wikipedia states this wing was redesignated the 67th Network Warfare Wing in July and that it is the largest operational wing in the Air Force with “more than 8,000 people serving at some 100 locations around the world”.

I was made aware of one of their capabilities back in the early nineties when one of my engineers downloaded a hacking program from the internet to test the security of a training system under development. The next day he got a call from the 67th Information Operations Wing (or the predecessor wing – it was a while back and I’m relying on memory). They detected the download and wanted to know why it was going to an Air Force network. We were O.K. but ever since then I knew someone was watching.

The war in Kosovo was probably the first where offensive operations were conducted via the internet. Serbians attempted some Denial of Service (DOS) attacks against sites in the U.S. but I don’t recall if any military sites were attacked. The Air Force also conducted DOS attacks though of the more permanent variety.

Recently the Navy has started to take a broader look at cyberwarfare.

Information warfare isn't new, it has been going on for as long as wars have existed. As new technologies are introduced you can be sure they will be exploited

For nearly 250 years, the Royal Navy was the supreme power on the waves, reaching its apogee in the early 19th century. The Royal Navy made the British Empire possible, which at its height was truly a global empire on which the sun literally never set.

The last demonstration of the Royal Navy's blue water capabilities was in 1982, during the Falklands war. With the retirement of nearly half its greatly-reduced battle fleet, the Royal Navy is no longer a first rank navy.

Royal Navy commanders were in uproar yesterday after it was revealed that almost half of the Fleet's 44 warships are to be mothballed as part of a Ministry of Defence cost-cutting measure.

Senior officers have said the plans will turn Britain's once-proud Navy into nothing more than a coastal defence force.

The Government has admitted that 13 unnamed warships are in a state of reduced readiness, putting them around 18 months away from active service. Today The Daily Telegraph can name a further six destroyers and frigates that are being proposed for cuts.

A need to cut the defence budget by £250 million this year to meet spending requirements has forced ministers to look at drastic measures.

The "coastal defense force" remark is hyperbole of course. The Royal Navy would still have some impressive capabilities, including a fleet of nuclear submarines and several carriers. While its true that the Royal Navy is numerically inferior to the French and Dutch navies, the Marine Nationale has only one aircraft carrier (Charles de Gaulle) and half the number of nuclear submarines. The Dutch have a few frigates and an array of support vessels.

Nevertheless, it is no longer a navy of the first rank, and may not be of the second rank either. Its a practical decision, but a difficult one--ending centuries of tradition and putting the final nail in the coffin of the British empire.

The Falklands are still referred to as the Malvinas in Argentina, but should the Argentinians get belligerent about it again, there won't be anything the British will be able to do about it this time around.

Twenty years ago I worked with an Air Force electronic warfare system designed to jam enemy communication systems. During a test flight along a Soviet bloc border our platform picked up a signal the engineers didn’t recognize. When they asked our intelligence brethren what it was they were told not to worry about it because it didn’t exist. The reason? – the intel agencies didn’t see it therefore it didn’t exist. That logic became a joke among our development team.

I mention this in light of stories like this one, taking to task the Pentagon for having an independent analysis and opinion of intelligence.

Why not?

As former U.S. defense policy chief Douglas Feith said of the questioned Pentagon assessment:

"It, of course, varied from (the) consensus. It was a criticism of that consensus. That is why it was written,"

I bristle at the implication, attributed to Secretary Gates, that intelligence is the sole purview of the bureaucrats in the intel agencies:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who replaced Donald Rumsfeld in December, did not comment on the substance of the report but said intelligence should to be handled through established channels.

Hopefully the established channels include those who may question the consensus.

**UPDATE 6:30PM**

Powerline has a related post on the Pentagon Inspector General's report on Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans:

The Inspector General said it was "inappropriate" for Feith's group to question the wisdom of the CIA's dogma that Saddam Hussein, a "secularist," would never cooperate with bin Laden or other Islamic terrorists. There was a time, though, when the likelihood of such collaboration was widely reported and understood. Thus, courtesy of Power Line Video, we are rescuing from the memory hole this ABC News report from 2000.

The video is an ABC news report in 2000 that links Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. For you John Kerry types who don't know an election year from an inauguration year, President Clinton occupied the White House in 2000.

Speaking of the CIA's dogma that a '"secularist" would never cooperate with bin Laden or other Islamic terrorists' we don't need to go further than the nearest sufferer of BDS to see the fallicy of that argument.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates pulled the plug on Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey over his handling of the Army’s medical care fiasco stating:

"I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed," he said in a brief statement at the Pentagon. "Some have shown too much defensiveness and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems."

Gates statement was right on the mark. Earlier this week, the former Secretary of the Army removed Major General George W. Weightman, M.D. as commander of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army Medical Center after the WAPO exposed deplorable conditions at a Walter Reed halfway house for wounded soldiers. Harvey put Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, commanding General of U.S. Army Medical Command in as a temporary replacement.

Major General George W. Weightman assumed command of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army Medical Center on August 25, 2006.

But check this out from Lt Gen Kevin Kiley’s bio:

“Immediately before his current assignment, LTG Kiley was commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Lead Agent for Region I.”

So the General replacing Weightman was himself the previous commander at Walter Reed. Are we to believe conditions at Walter Reed went to hell only during the six months Weightman was in charge? Hardly.

Former Secretary Harvey, feeling the heat over the scandal, did nothing more than toss Weightman like a virgin sacrifice into the media volcano and put Kiley back in charge with a “Nothing to see here, move along” attitude. That had to be a bit demoralizing for the staff at Walter Reed. Harvey failed the character test and Gates called him on it. Good.

As an aside, former Secretary Harvey was a second choice for the post of Army Secretary. President Bush first nominated James G. Roche, who at the time was serving as Air Force Secretary (an outstanding one). Senator John McCain, in one of his grandstanding episodes, put a hold on this nomination in a dispute with the administration about executive privilege. McCain's trantrum deprived the Army of a person who would have taken names and kicked butt to transform the leadership. One has to wonder if the Walter Reed scandal would have been an issue if it weren't for McCain.

"Nobody's been in a military hospital before?!" my wife remarked when she read this Deseret News article. Of course she's had twenty plus years experience with military care and is married to a man born in an Air Force hospital (my parents tell me it was more like a quonset hut).

It was inevitable once the problems at Walter Reed made the news that the other horror stories would crop up. I imagine every US military hospital commander and VA adminstrator around the world began scrambling when the initial WaPo story hit the newstands.

Much of the care we recieved was fine, but there was the occasional screw-up. More challenging were the idiotic bureaucratic issues to deal with. The exposure will be good, even if the motive of the press corps and Congress is more to skewer President Bush than help the troops. Lets just call that the positive side-effect of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Oh - you wonder what socialized medicine looks like but can't afford to drive to Canada to take a peek? Just drop by your local VA hospital. I'm sure they won't mind.

The Navy must read UNCoRRELATED and noticed Reuters lack of current Naval Aviation photos. Petty Officer 2nd Class Aaron Burden provides this photo of an F-18C taking off from the USS Ronald Reagan. And the photo is free!

..who have just been sacked have been sacked.

Army Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the service's surgeon general who has been under fire for shortcomings in outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here, submitted his request to retire from the Army yesterday. ( From an AFPS press release)

The body count over the Walter Reed hospice care fiasco is one Army Secretary, a three-star general, a two-star general, and an untold number of Walter Reed staffers. The Army will have to promote more medical generals just to have someone else to fire.

All the Army needs now to complete this Monty Python act are 40 SPECIALLY TRAINED ECUADORIAN MOUNTAIN LLAMAS

Michael Yon reports that he's getting threats--not from Jihadists, but from American generals:

A general emailed in the past 24 hours threatening to kick me out. The first time the Army threatened to kick me out was in late 2005, just after I published a dispatch called “Gates of Fire.” Some of the senior level public affairs people who’d been upset by “Proximity Delays” were looking ever since for a reason to kick me out and they wanted to use “Gates of Fire” as a catapult. In the events described in that dispatch, I broke some rules by, for instance, firing a weapon during combat when some of our soldiers were fighting fairly close quarters and one was wounded and still under enemy fire. That’s right. I’m not sure what message the senior level public affairs people thought that would convey had they succeeded, (which they didn’t) but it was clear to me what they valued most. They want the press on a short leash, even at the expense of the life of a soldier.

Some readers might recall that LTC Barry Johnson denied my embed requests in 2006, but after I wrote “Censoring Iraq,” somehow the door opened up. Strangely, a couple days ago, LTC Barry Johnson invited me to be a panelist at a symposium in Washington D.C. on ”the role of blogs and bloggers in the news environment today. The intent is to help PAOs better understand the issues involved.” Call me suspicious, but my whiskers tingled on that one.

I can understand why someone would prefer the press be kept at arms length--I certainly wouldn't want a reporter hanging around my place of business, but someone has got to educate the military about the fact that the media is part of the deal. I think every blogger should write a po