The USS Medgar Evers? The USS John Murtha? The USS Cesar Chavez?

The SECNAV has been turning new naval construction into a series of unpaid political advertisement…what is known in the ad world as “product placement” on a previously unimaginable scale.

Our Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, has this diversity thing down cold. Each one of those ships was in a class that previous names of their sister ships had nothing to do with civil rights, or corrupt Democratic politicians. Ships are usually named after states, cities, even famous explorers and war heroes.

But Mabus has injected partisanship into this tradition, naming another ship for Democrat Gabriel Giffords, who has shown courage in her recovery from an assassination attempt but had expressed little interest in the military during her career on Capitol Hill.

As a retired Navy Chief, this form of political spoils is disrespectful of the traditions of the service that the Secretary is supposed to at least support and respect. Unfortunately, it’s just par for the course for the most blatantly anti-military administration in the history of the republic.

At least the blowback from this has apparently attracted even Mabus’ attention:

Naming of Navy ships returns to tradition
Recent choices drew criticism

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, under fire from Congress and veterans for naming ships after fellow Democrats and social activists, plans to announce another round of ship names in the near future that will be more traditional, a Pentagon official tells The Washington Times.

The official said Mr. Mabus has chosen names for five surface ships – three for war heroes and two for locations. Ships typically are named after states and cities.

“I think they would be more consistent with what most people would say traditions and naming conventions are,” the official said.

Of course, according to the SECNAV’s mouthpiece the objections to the prior politically biased naming had nothing to do with any change.

Asked whether this was a response to criticism, the official said: “It isn’t. I think if you look at these five additional ships, I think you’ll see examples that are very traditional.” The official said three ships would be named after highly decorated Navy or Marine Corps personnel.

Yeah, right!

Mr. Mabus, a former Mississippi governor, broke with Navy conventions in the past three years when he named an amphibious ship, two cargo ships and a littoral combat ship after two social activists and two fellow Democrats.

What really added insult to injury was the naming of the USS John Murtha…after the Murtha-f’er, without evidence, falsely accused Marines of murder in Iraq. (Charges were not substantiated in later proceedings.) What an insult to the Marines, and to the fleet. I pity the Sailors who will have to serve aboard ships with no Naval tradition or pride in their ship’s name.

Osama bin Laden, the face of global terrorism and architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was killed in a firefight with elite American forces Monday, then quickly buried at sea in a stunning finale to a furtive decade on the run.

Long believed to be hiding in caves, bin Laden was tracked down in a costly, custom-built hideout not far from a Pakistani military academy. The stunning news of his death prompted relief and euphoria outside the White House and around the globe, yet also fears of terrorist reprisals against the United States and its allies.

“Justice has been done,” President Barack Obama said in a dramatic announcement at the White House.

The military operation took mere minutes, and there were no U.S. casualties.

U.S. helicopters ferried troops from Navy SEAL Team Six, a top military counter-terrorism unit, into the compound identified by the CIA as bin Laden’s hideout — and back out again in less than 40 minutes. Bin Laden was shot in the head, officials said, after he and his bodyguards resisted the assault.

Better late than never…overall, a good outcome…and the dumping at sea is a nice touch…no pesky remains to give jihadis a place to go for pilgramage.

B.O. should get credit where credit is due…he directly ordered the search mission, and then, when we got the information, the SEALs were sent in to do the job in their own inimitable way! Bravo Zulu from the Chief!

Ever wonder how much a Tomahawk missile costs? How about 110 of them? And what effect will those prices have on GOP attemps to trim the budget? Those are the questions that many are asking as American involves itself in yet another international conflict. And the answers aren’t too settling.

Well, DUH! Fighting even a limited high-tech war is an expensive business, in any sense of the word!

The question that remains unanswered is what in the world are we really trying to accomplish with this one. There’s info out there that the best organized eastern Libyan opposition to Qaddafi is our old fave al-Qaida. Not wouldn’t THAT be an improvement to Muammar? (NOT!)

We would be better advised to husband our resources, and not be involved with this one….Like, if you’re hiking down the trail and come upon a scorpion dueling with a rattlesnake, would you choose a side and get involved? No thanks!

‘Punisher’ gets its first battlefield tests

The XM25 has changed the battlefield with only 55 rounds, and earned a new name among soldiers. They call it “the Punisher.”

Since its first contact Dec. 3, the XM25 has been in nine engagements with two units at different locations, officials said. Specifically, it has disrupted two insurgent attacks on observation posts, taken out two PKM machine gun positions and destroyed four ambush sites.

The key is the targeting system and the “air-burst” capability:

The XM25 has a target acquisition system that calculates range with the push of a button. The data is transferred to an electronic fuse, enabling the 25mm round to explode over the target and rain shell fragments on the enemy.

That’s gotta smart! Hmmmm. Something like that would be really handy come goose season…then again, maybe not, there probably wouldn’t be enough goose left afterwords. Oh well.

H/T to The Blaze.

Firstly, at the time of T.A.R.P. and the rest of the financial bailouts, we were repeatedly warned by all of the Washington establishment that this was essential in order to prevent a total, and irreparable financial meltdown. But what if the bailouts had never taken place?…

Iceland did not bail out the banks or the bank investors and its economy is thriving, proving that the the US-Irish model of bailing out the banks with taxpayer money was harmful unless you were a wealthy bank investor

What was the ultimate effect?

Today, Iceland is recovering. The three new banks had combined profit of $309 million in the first nine months of 2010. GDP grew for the first time in two years in the third quarter, by 1.2 percent, inflation is down to 1.8 percent and the cost of insuring government debt has tumbled 80 percent. Stores in Reykjavik were filled with Christmas shoppers in early December, and bank branches were crowded with customers.

Meanwhile, there are items relating to the B.O. administration is engaging in apparently betrayal and/or mistreatment of allies and friends abroad:

ITEM:
The American betrayal
Op-ed: Obama’s abandonment of Mubarak shows Israel cannot count on US at times of crisis

…there is one more thing we can learn from the events in Egypt, aside from the fragility of the region we inhabit, and it is something that’s not easy to digest: The Western world’s and mostly America’s treachery. We learned that the way they abandoned President Mubarak and gave him the cold shoulder can happen to us too. Or in other words, we cannot count on the Americans at a time of crisis.

ITEM:
WikiLeaks cables: US agrees to tell Russia Britain’s nuclear secrets

The US secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The US, under a nuclear deal, has agreed to give the Kremlin the serial numbers of the missiles it gives Britain Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal to be signed by President Barack Obama next week.

After his returning the Churchill bust, snubbing Brit leaders, including the Queen, one gets the idea that B.O. REALLY does not like Britain.Along with this, the upside-down policy orientation of B.O. is further illustrated by policies that refuse to recognize those who are our enemies:

Failures by FBI, Pentagon contributed to Ft. Hood massacre, report says

The FBI and the Pentagon are responsible for a “string of failures” in the way they attempted to track a disgruntled Army major in the years before he allegedly opened fire at a crowded Ft. Hood, Texas, deployment center in the worst domestic terror ambush since the attacks of September 2001, two key Senate leaders concluded Thursday.

In addition, Army supervisors repeatedly referred to Maj. Nidal Hasan as a “ticking time bomb,” and FBI agents and the military knew he had become radicalized under the influence of a violent Islamist extremist. Yet the agents never arrested him, and his military superiors never disciplined or furloughed him out of the Army.

In an apparent triumph of political correctness no action was taken lest it offer offense to Islam. The Chief’s response would have been to s–tcan Hasan, and f’em if they can’t take the joke.

Meanwhile, there is also THIS particular bit of craziness:

China Maneuvers for U.S. Defense Contracts

The maker of China’s new stealth fighter jet has teamed up with a tiny, unprofitable California company to try to launch bids for U.S. defense contracts, possibly including one to supply Chinese helicopters to replace the aging Marine One fleet used by the president, according to people involved in the partnership.

Fortunately this one looks to be beyond the reach of even B.O.’s aspirations for playing kissy-face with the ChiComs:

Any Chinese bids for this or another contract under discussion would be certain to meet intense political resistance and would appear to have very little chance of success given mounting U.S. concern about China’s military power and long-term strategic goals, and the often-prohibitive opposition in the past to Chinese attempts to enter other strategic U.S. sectors, such as energy and telecommunications

UNforunately, they may be back for another attempt:

…the two companies have also been discussing putting forward AVIC’s new L-15 trainer jet as a candidate to replace the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of Northrop T-38s, which entered service 50 years ago and on which American fighter pilots learn skills such as how to fly at supersonic speeds.

That contract is expected to be one of the most lucrative military aviation contracts this decade, with the U.S. likely to buy about 400 and other allied countries about 600 more as the jet will become the standard for training pilots to fly the U.S. F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters.

Is it just me, or does anyone else get a really bad feeling about the US becoming dependent on the ChiComs for maintaining our military? Sheeesh!

China used downed U.S. fighter to develop first stealth jet

China was able to build its first stealth bomber using technology gleaned from a downed U.S. fighter, it has been claimed. Beijing unveiled its state-of-the-art jet – the Chengdu J-20 – earlier this month. Military officials say it is likely the Chinese were able to develop the stealth technology from parts of an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999.

I know that imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery…but in this case it would be better if that honor could have been avoided.

The PRC is the new USSR as far as the US is concerned.

• Cote d’Ivoire
• Colombia
• Zimbabwe
• Iraq
• Venezuela
• Sudan
• Mexico
• Guatemala
• Haiti
• Tajikistan
• Pakistan
• Somalia
• Lebanon
• Nigeria
• Guinea
• Democratic Republic of the Congo

See the linked article for the gory or potentially gory details.

Uh…where’s North Korea?

Iran is planning to place medium-range missiles on Venezuelan soil, based on western information sources[1], according to an article in the German daily, Die Welt, of November 25, 2010. According to the article, an agreement between the two countries was signed during the last visit o Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Tehran on October19, 2010. The previously undisclosed contract provides for the establishment of a jointly operated military base in Venezuela, and the joint development of ground-to-ground missiles.

The Chief recently finished reading Michael Dobbs’ One Minute to Midnight, his engaging, authoritative, and detailed account of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and how we were able to avoid a thermonuclear war largely due to the fact that grown-ups (Kennedy and Krushchev) were at least nominally in charge, and in spite of a spontaneous flow of negative events were able to engineer a mutually tolerable conclusion to the situation. (By the way, the book is a great read…sort of Tom Clancy for real!)

Unfortunately one doubts that with Obama, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the players today, that the character and level of rationality available will prove to be adequate to maintain sanity, to say nothing of national security.

The situation that is unfolding in Venezuela has some resemblance to the Cuba crisis of 1962. At that time, Cuba was acting on behalf of the USSR; now Venezuela is acting on behalf of Iran. At present, the geopolitical situation is very different: the world is no longer ruled by two superpowers; new nations, often with questionable leaders and the ambition of acquiring global status, are appearing on the international scene. Their danger to the free world will be greater if the process of nuclear proliferation is not stopped. Among the nations that aspire to become world powers, Iran has certainly the best capabilities of posing a challenge to the West.

Back in the 1962, thanks to the stern stance adopted by the then Kennedy administration, the crisis was defused.

Nowadays, however, we do not see the same firmness from the present administration. On the contrary, we see a lax attitude, both in language and in deeds, that results in extending hands when our adversaries have no intention of shaking hands with us. Iran is soon going to have a nuclear weapon, and there are no signs that UN sanctions will in any way deter the Ayatollah’s regime from completing its nuclear program. We know that Iran already has missiles that can carry an atomic warhead over Israel and over the Arabian Peninsula. Now we learn that Iran is planning to build a missile base close to the US borders. How longer do we have to wait before the Obama administration begins to understand threats?

Pray.

GOP Gov. Rick Perry, who continues to insist he’s not interested in the presidency, is nevertheless always ready to tell the federal government how to do a better job on such matters as border security — including indicating the U.S. should be open to sending military into Mexico to help fight the drug war.

Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday, Perry was asked, “Would you advocate military involvement in Mexico on the Mexico side of the border to help Mexico in this drug war?”

Perry answered: “I think we have to use every aspect of law enforcement that we have, including the military. I think you have the same situation as you had in Colombia. Obviously, Mexico has to approve any type of assistance that we can give them.

“But the fact of the matter is, these are people who are highly motivated with money. They are vicious. They are armed to the teeth. I want to see them defeated. And any means that we can to run these people off our border and to save Americans’ lives we need to be engaged in.”

General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing commanded a US expeditionary force that fought Mexican insurgents under Pancho Villa after the burning of the town of Columbus, NM. The effort was finally ended only with Pershing and the Army having bigger fish to fry with the US entry into WW-I. The Mexican expedition never actually caught up with Villa himself, but it did have the effect of keeping the border clear…which seems today to be a most positive outcome.

Now, if only the fleet of jet aircraft and 3000 retainers was similarly an exaggeration…no such luck.

No, Pentagon says, Obama will not be guarded by 34 ships

President Barack Obama will not be protected by a vast armada of 34 US warships when he visits Mumbai this weekend, officials said, calling reports from India on security preparations “comical.”

The claim that many of the 288-ship US naval fleet would be deployed to waters off Mumbai was “absolutely absurd,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters on Thursday.

US officials usually decline to discuss details about security precautions for the president, but the media accounts circulating out of India were so off the mark that press officers at the Pentagon and the White House said they felt compelled to speak up.

“I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd this notion that somehow we were deploying 10 percent of the Navy — some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier — in support of the president’s trip to Asia,” Morrell said.