Will Duke & Charlie Be Cell Mates?

Reading about corrupt New York Democrat and former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel, I keep seeing references to his service in the Korean war.

So here's my question: Will Charlie get to share a cell with Randy "Duke" Cunningham? Here's a video clip of Cunningham discussing his most famous dogfight.

Cunningham is the former California House member and Vietnam Navy fighter ace/hero who went to prison for soliciting bribes while, I believe, on the House Armed Services Committee.

Can they be cell mates, since both forgot that, as House members, they served the people, not the other way 'round? That supposes Rangel gets prison time, which would be appropriate if the charges concerning his tax evasion are true.

In Cunningham's case, though I can't find a clip of the scene, he was tearful as he faced cameras after his conviction. He didn't blubber and excuse his behavior by recalling his military service.

I doubt we'll be so lucky in Rangel's case. Expect him to hide behind his being black and a veteran, claim special circumstances, and totally deny culpability for his criminal behavior.

Ironic Naming of US Spy Submarine

A friend recently regaled me with some stories regarding the recently-decommissioned Sturgeon-class submarine USS Parche.

It seems that Parche was the predominant US spy submarine during its long career, from 1979-2004,

"Parche is the most decorated ship in U.S. Navy history, receiving a total of nine Presidential Unit Citations, ten Navy Unit Citations, and thirteen Navy Expeditionary Medal awards during her thirty years of service."

I'd read of Parche's participation in the famous undersea cable tap in Blindman's Bluff, a book written about a decade ago providing the first public information concerning the US Navy's extensive undersea espionage activities. It's riveting reading. According to my friend, the recently-published Red November is similarly informative and worth the price.

What seemed incredibly ironic to me was the text at the end of the Wiki article:

Parche's research and development duties will be assumed by Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf-class submarine whose construction period was extended to include modifications that will allow her to carry out the same types of research and development.[1] According to Robert Karniol, Jimmy Carter in succeeding Parche has become "Washington's premier spy submarine."

I get the connections. Carter was a nuclear submarine commander. Carter was a president, ineffectual, mean-spirited, petty and comical though he may have been.

But, really, the guy was about the most anti-military president we've ever had. He personally botched the Desert-One Iranian hostage rescue. It took Ronald Reagan to restore America's military strength and, perhaps more importantly, international respect for and fear of that military's capabilities.

Why would you name a premier piece of Navy espionage equipment for one of the most pacifist, embarrassing Commanders in Chief in our nation's history?

McChrystal's Calculated "Gaffe"

Does anyone really think General Stanley McChrystal didn't know what he was doing when he sat for the Rolling Stone interview?

Surely, this was not an accident or simply a case of, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal lead staff editorial contended, "bad judgement."

McChrystal headed SOG command and may be considered among the most elite and higher ranking Army officers on duty. Being SOG-trained and its commander, it's easy to imagine the General and his staffers seeing Wonderboy and his staff as a joke. And feeling it an insult to have to report to the First Rookie as Commander in Chief.

A guy like McChyrstal can probably only take so much political interference and incompetence before he believes he has a choice to make- between his troops' safety and the accomplishment of his mission, or silence and failure.

McChrystal chose the former, and the loss of his job. Probably resignation to follow shortly. I personally believe he had chosen this end with full knowledge as he began the fateful interview.

I'm curious as to why he even made a pretense of apologizing to people whom he derided in the interview. Does he really care?

I think not.

After a career of dangerous service to his nation, including stints in the blackest ops element of the service, McChrystal sacrificed the remainder of that career to highlight to the American people, in a very public manner, the mistakes and fecklessness of Wonderboy's administration and its hapless approach to military conflict.

We owe General McChrystal a major debt for his courage in speaking his mind and consenting to pay the inevitable price for that in our system of civilian control of the military.

Wonderboy Desecrates West Point

I would imagine that George Washington, U.S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower are all spinning in their graves at the thought of Wonderboy desecrating West Point by using- and I mean using- the Army's service college to deliver a speech about the result of his dithering over Afghanistan.

At this point, it really doesn't matter what he says. Early releases of his speech indicate that he will focus more on promising a quick withdrawal of the forces he is sending than on their dispatch, or what they will do.

The three men I mentioned earlier, two West Point graduates who became President, and the first President of the Republic, who designated the site as so important, would certainly have disapproved of our First Rookie's inability to trust his commanders, make a prompt decision, and show real commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

I would not have wanted to be in uniform serving our country, at West Point, to watch this travesty. It's a disgrace to our country's armed services and the men and women currently enrolled at West Point that Wonderboy used the post as yet another prop in his never-ending teleplay that is his administration.

Too bad the service men and women being sent to Afghanistan are not in a theatrical production, like the president's speech, but are risking their lives. They deserve so much more in a commander in chief than they are getting from Obama.

Wonderboy As Commander In Chief

Our naive and inexperienced Commander In Chief has once again proven himself to be Hamlet reborn.

This week, his administration carefully leaked that Wonderboy, after months of staged "thinking" about his Afghanistan army commander's recommendation/request for 40,000 more troops, is cutting it back to 35,000.

You really can tell that our First Rookie has absolutely no sense of what the application of real military force is all about.

While not all combatants, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter and both Bushes all were at least in the military. Reagan deferred to his generals and admirals. Clinton tried to forget we had a military.

Thus, for the last 60 years, almost every American president has had some understanding that men and women die when a US president commits troops. Thus, because we are a democracy and, especially now, with a volunteer military, the commitment has to be well-reasoned, defensible, and calculated to not needless expend lives.

Instead, Wonderboy is playing political chess with American military personnels' lives.

He's worried about just accepting McChrystal's recommendation, for fear of rubber-stamping the dreaded, hated military's decisions. He won't cut and run, for fear of being justly criticized for "losing" Afghanistan. Especially after declaring it a necessary war during his pre-election campaign.

Thus, his solution to cavalierly cut some arbitrary number of to-be-deployed troops. Looks shrewd, to Wonderboy and his handlers, on paper.

Of course, to that crew, army personnel dispatched to Afghanistan are only so many flags on a map. Not real soldiers. The possibility that sending too few endangers the rest is so far from being understood by this president and his staff that it disgusts the average American.

Nowhere among Wonderboy's senior staff and handlers are any trustworthy, reputable advisers with military backgrounds.

This administration has no grasp of the nature and use of military power. Other than using military bases for photo opportunities, it can't figure out what to do with real global situations requiring the skilled application of American military power.

At least the coming sacrifices of American lives due to Wonderboy's incompetence may help usher him out of office that much sooner.