Honoring 9-11

I read the below on Breitbart's Big Hollywood blog and thought it was worth re-posting here. A good portion of our crew are current and/or former military, with 3 of them having server in the GWOT and one on his way.

Honoring September 11th: They Wants Us to Forget
by Mark Tapson

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – William Faulkner

“We will write our own future, and the future will be what we want it to be.” – Barack Obama

In a quiet and seemingly innocuous gesture, President Obama has designated 9/11 as “The National Day of Service and Remembrance.” Personally, I liked the ring of “Patriot Day,” and what does “service and remembrance” mean, precisely ? The idea is to get Americans to “engage in meaningful service to create change…in four key areas”: education, health, energy/environment and community renewal. None of these seems to have anything to do with honoring 9/11, but that seems to be the point: in the Huffington Post, Muslim-American playwright Wajahat Ali wrote, “In the US, we are trying to move away from focusing on 9/11 as a day of horror, and instead make it a day to recommit ourselves to national service.” An excellent Spectator article provides a blunter translation: “Nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.” Why? ”They think it needs to be taken back from the right.”

In other words, they resent the surge of patriotism and righteous outrage stirred up by the attacks, sentiments that empower the political Right. In order to advance the leftist agenda of dismantling American exceptionalism and recasting ourselves as the villain in our history books, they need Americans to put 9/11 behind us, forget the victims, forget that our enemy danced in the streets in celebration, forget that Islamic terror plots on our very shores continue to be disrupted, and forget that our rights and freedoms are under assault by a subversive civilizational jihad.

It seems impossible to believe that that morning could be forgotten – just as it was once impossible to believe that our government could erase “jihad” and “Islamic” and “terrorism” from our national lexicon, preventing us from even naming the enemy, or that an American President could proclaim us no longer a Christian nation, but rather one of the world’s largest Muslim countries. There was a time when screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh’s extraordinary 2006 ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11 was going to be shown in schools across this country and be aired every 9/11 anniversary – until the Clinton administration, wanting you to forget their flaccid response to the growing threat of Islamic extremism, and fearing the show would tarnish their political legacy, pulled out all the stops to suppress it; it very nearly wasn’t aired, and today you can’t even obtain it on DVD. (This whole story has been related fascinatingly in John Ziegler’s must-see documentary Blocking the Path to 9/11). It’s impossible to forget that morning only if we fight to keep its memory alive.

Americans can commit themselves to public service any or every other day of the year; 9/11 should be reserved for solemn remembrance and renewed commitment to preserving American security, values and sovereignty. A day of greening your neighborhood? I’m all for planting trees, but what does “green” have to do with 9/11? Only that it’s the color of Islam. But if the President insists, allow me to suggest some service appropriate to the day:

Education? How about this: educate yourself and your children about 9/11 and about the continuing Islamist threat – not only of overt acts of terrorism, but the insidious dangers of “stealth jihad” and “creeping sharia.”

Environment and community renewal? Okay, beautify your block by flying the Stars and Stripes. It sends a simple but unmistakable message to the enemy and their useful idiots that, unlike our post-American President and his fawning media, you are proud to be American; you believe in American exceptionalism; you believe that making this day about installing fluorescent light bulbs trivializes the memory of 9/11’s victims; and you will never let their deaths be in vain or erased from history.

Eight years ago, nineteen fanatical Muslims turned hijacked aircraft carrying hundreds of terrified passengers into missiles targeting symbols of American might. Nearly 3000 innocents died horribly that day, including hundreds of courageous, selfless first responders making a superhuman effort to rescue their fellow citizens. The hijackers are regarded by their fellow Islamists as heroes and martyrs in the cosmic war against the Great Satan America. That war is by no means over, and thus, in the Faulknerian sense, neither is 9/11. We owe it to the victims to keep this day alive in our hearts and national consciousness - and not allow the Left to bury it.

Make no mistake, no matter how the current administration tries to downplay the threat of radical Islam or change the lexicon of the GWOT to make its language more palatable to the PC-minded, what we face is a culture war - the progressive, free-minded, free-markets vs. the last bastions of anachronistic monarchy, oppression, and closed-mindedness.

If you doubt, ask any woman who grew up under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan or Christian expartriates who live and work in the Saudi kingdom.

There is no timetable for a pull-out.

There will be no Paris Accords or effective mutual withdrawal.

We will be fighting this war until the end of time.

The iPod - a crucial part of your . . . . arsenal?

It looks like iPods have finally come to their own with the tactically-minded set - and I don't mean the ability to bring up "Welcome to the Jungle" every time you find yourself in the middle of a fray.

A company has designed an application for the ubiquitous device that would take the place of a ballistics computer or the standard sniper dope note card taped to the cheek side of your rifle stock.

And you can even download it from iTunes!

Sniper rifle software launched for iPod touch
New BulletFlight program could be a 'killer' app for Apple

A new application has been launched for the iPod touch to help gun users line up a clean shot at their target.

The BulletFlight app, which costs £6.99 to download from the iTunes store, has been developed by Runaway App to turn the iPod touch into a ballistics computer which the company says can provide “quick solutions in the field”.

Users can mount their iPod touch to their rifle, and then use the iPod’s touch-screen to tap in details about the wind conditions, ammunition type, distance to the intended target and even the wind speed.

It even includes data for several different weapons and calibers.

The application features built-in profiles for three weapons – the M110 semi-automatic precision rifle, the KAC PDW, and the 14.5in SR16 rifle – although users can add more weapons into the app.

“Environmental calculations are based on the Sierra Bullet model,” says the BulletFlight iTunes entry. “Up to five ballistic co-efficients with corresponding velocity thresholds may be used for each profile.”

More.

Just when you thought iTunes was only a place to download one-hit wonders and audio books.

Officers fear Mexican military encounters will turn violent

Since 1996, there have been more than 200 confirmed incursions by the Mexican military into the United States.

Particularly galling is the fact that the Mexican military often pulls these stunts in Humvees donated to them by the American taxpayers.

More.

The Predator Mad Minute

Last night I put Predator on in the background while I was working on some projects. I have probably seen the movie a good fifty or so times and I still notice little cool things about it.

I looked up from the work table at the scene where Bill Duke's character Eliot rushes up on the recently slain Blain (Jesse Ventura) and sees the eyes of the Predator. He picks up "Ol' Painless" the minigun and starts to ventilate the jungle. He is soon joined by the team in a massive shoot-out at the unseen Predator. I always thought this was a great scene for all of the different weapons the team took out on the mission.


I had no idea these kind of shenanigans could serve a tactical purpose.

My first clue came from the Predator entry in font of all true knowledge in the universe, Wikipedia:

Eliot starts screaming and immediately opens fire and is joined by the remaining members of the unit. In what is known as a "mad minute", all members of the team saturate the jungle with bullets. They stop firing and to their shock, are unable to find any bodies.

So learning more, I found out that a 'mad minute' is a real military term, having come from the British:

Originally, "Mad Minute" was a pre-WWI term used by British riflemen for the act of getting 15 aimed bullets into a target at 300yds within one minute using a bolt-action rifle (usually a Lee-Enfield or Lee-Metford rifle).

Now for someone that grew up shooting all of the weapons of the pre-WW2 British Army, I have to say I am pretty ashamed at having never heard of this before.

But wait - there's more!

Mad Minute is a military tactic used to surprise enemy snipers when their location is unknown. If there are too many possible positions to determine where the enemy fire is coming from, each likely enemy position is assigned to one or more soldiers. Upon receiving the signal, all simultaneously fire a specific number of rounds. The tactic has a long history of effective use; it also has strong secondary value as a morale booster.

The name "Mad Minute" comes from the experience of "madness" during the time of heavy firing upon various targets without knowing the exact location of the enemy, leading to heavy use of ammunition.

Hell, I even found a video on YouTube showing a 'mad minute' with a surplus British SMLE rifle (WW1 vintage). Too cool!

I had no idea our post-paintball-game antics had a real tactical purpose.

Thanks, Wikipedia!

A Blade Runner Tomorrow

Britain's Ministry of Defence recently published a 90-page report detailing the future conflicts likely faced by British soliders. Though it does have a decidedly British slant, it is very relevant for any Western countries as it details issues that will undoubtedly face Western culture. While it doesn't mention the nuclear holocaust scenario we all grew up fearing as kids, it is very dark and definitely lends itself well to the background of a Phillip K. Dick or William Gibson novel.

Here are some exerpts:

New weapons
An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organs but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.

Technology
By 2035, an implantable "information chip" could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilise "flashmobs", challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.

Marxism
"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".

Pressures leading to social unrest
By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.

Some of these technical issues really sound like first glimpses of The Singularity we've been talking about for the past few years. I find the Marxist angle especially interesting as it really provides a pessimistic view of what is happening to the increasingly disillusioned middle class.

More here