| Tuesday, July
17, 2001
Begin with a comment from Carol
Iannone posted in a different forum and reprinted here with permission.
The subject was the recent race riots in Britain, and some commentary on
those by the Bennets:
Ridicule is not really a weapon, or if
it is, it is often the weapon of the powerless. The powerful can often
endure jokes which don't really touch their power. There were numerous
jokes in the Soviet Union about the government but it still lasted decades
and decades. The system did eventually collapse, but not until it had done
enormous and probably irreversible damage to Russia and to many
generations of people who have, after all, only one life to live on this
earth, and cannot always wait for the better tomorrow that is always being
promised.
Prophesies about bad policies
peaking or coming to an end and so forth are not helpful and only serve as
palliatives, assuring lazy people that they don't have to exert themselves
to do anything to stop the policies Bright young people this very day are
are being propagandized with multicultural nonsense in lieu of a real
education, and thus each generation is getting further and further from
understanding how our country was founded and how it can be sustained. If
you do get a rebellion, it will be more the kind of cynicism Lytton
Strachey aimed at the Victorians, or the furious nihilism Russian
intellectuals aimed at their country, both of which turned out to be
poisonous for their societies.
The instinctive rebellion of young
people today to what they have been taught is of little use. It has to be
based on an understanding of truth which in our society thanks to
multiculturalism and political correctness and massive immigration, is
hard to speak or to hear spoken in the public forum.
Carol Iannone Every
sentence of that is worth reflection.
Jerry
It appears that Russia and China have just agreed to
closer ties. And the Chinese, a nation which is aggressively expanding its
influence (for example, laying claim to islands far from its shore, laying
claim, in fact, to the entire South China Sea), have been awarded the
Olympics in 2008. It all seems so familiar.
In the runup to the last unlimited war, the
international gave the Olympics to an aggressively expanding Nazi Germany.
And the Soviet Russians made an agreement with them (they split up Poland,
for example; the current eastern border of Poland is where they divided
it).
In the end, because the Germans wanted what the
Russians had, the Germans decided to try to eat Russia. Today, we know
that Siberia has many things that the Chinese covet. We also know that
Siberia is lightly settled with potential defenders of the Fatherland. We
also know that China has ancient claims on Siberia, and they don't forget
such claims.
Don't the Russians ever learn?
[If you publish this, please don't use my name]
Apparently the Russians do not ever
learn. They will.
Now for something else:
From: Nancy Guiles [mailto:nguiles@home.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2001 5:25 PM
To: Sue McCune Subject: GI Pay
Deserving of a Medal or $$
On 12 Jan, Ms. Cindy Williams (from Laverne and
Shirley TV show) wrote a piece for the Washington Times denouncing the pay
raise(s) coming service members' way this year-citing that the stated 13%
wage gap was bogus. A young airman from Hill AFB responds to her article
below. He ought to get a bonus for this!
Ms. Williams: I just had the pleasure of reading
your column of 12 Jan 00, "Our GI's earn enough" and I am a bit
confused. Frankly, I'm wondering where this vaunted overpayment is going,
because as far as I can tell, it disappears every month between DFAS (The
Defense Finance and Accounting Service) and my bank account. Checking my
latest leave and earnings statement (LES), I see that I make $1,117.80,
before taxes. After taxes, I take home $874.20. When I run that through
Windows Calculator, I come up with an annual salary of $13,413.60 before
taxes and $10,490.40 after.
I work in the Air Force Network Control Center (AFNCC),
where I am part of the team responsible for the administration of a
25,000-host computer network. I am involved with infrastructure segments,
specifically with Cisco Systems equipment. A quick check under jobs for
Network Technicians in the Washington, DC area reveals a position in my
career field, requiring three years experience with my job. Amazingly,
this job does NOT pay $13,413.60 a year, nor does it pay less than this.
No, this job is being offered at $70,000 to $80,000 per annum. I'm sure
you can draw the obvious conclusions.
Also, you tout increases to Basic Allowance for
Housing and Basic Allowance for Subsistence (housing and food allowances,
respectively) as being a further boon to an already overcompensated force.
Again, I'm curious as to where this money has gone, as BAH and BAS were
both slashed 15% in the Hill AFB area effective in January 2000. Given the
tenor of your column, I would assume that you have NEVER had the pleasure
of serving your country in her armed forces.
Before you take it upon yourself to once more
castigate congressional and DOD leadership for attempting to get the
families in the military's lowest pay brackets off AFDC, WIC, and food
stamps, I suggest that you join a group of deploying soldiers headed for
Saudi. I leave the choice of service branch up to you. Whatever choice you
make, though, opt for the SIX month rotation: it will guarantee you the
longest possible time away from your family and friends, thus giving you
full "deployment experience." As your group prepares to board
the plane, make sure to note the spouses and children who are saying
good-bye to their loved ones. Also, take care to note that several
families are still unsure of how they'll be able to make ends meet while
the primary breadwinner is gone--obviously they've been squandering the
vast piles of cash the DOD has been giving them.
Try to deploy over a major holiday; Christmas and
Thanksgiving are perennial favorites. And when you're actually over there,
sitting in a DFP (Defensive Fire Position, the modern-day foxhole),
shivering against the cold desert night, and the flight sergeant tells you
that there aren't enough people on shift to relieve you for chow, remember
this: trade whatever MRE you manage to get for the tuna noodle casserole
or cheese tortellini, and add Tabasco to everything.
Talk to your loved ones as often as you are
permitted; it won't nearly be long enough or often enough, but take what
you can get and be thankful for it. You may have picked up on the fact
that I disagree with most of the points you present in your op-ed piece.
But, tomorrow from Sarajevo, I will defend to the death your right to say
it.
You see, I am an American fighting man, a guarantor
of your First Amendment rights and every other right you cherish. On a
daily basis, my brother and sister soldiers worldwide ensure that you and
people like you can thumb your collective nose at us, all on a salary that
is nothing short of pitiful and under conditions that would make most
people cringe. We hemorrhage our best and brightest into the private
sector because we can't offer the stability and pay of civilian companies.
And you, Ms. Williams, have the gall to say that we make more than we
deserve?
Rubbish!
A1C Michael Bragg Hill AFB AFNCC
IF YOU AGREE, PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO AS MANY
PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE AND SHOW OUR SUPPORT OF THE AMERICAN FIGHTING MEN AND
WOMEN. THANK YOU. THIS LETTER SHOULD BE APPLAUDED BY ANYONE WHO'S EVER
SERVED OR HAD A FAMILY MEMBER SERVE IN THE ARMED FORCES! THIS YOUNG MAN
DESERVES A MEDAL.
I am not sure any comment is needed.
They aren't "our" bombers any longer... Alas, there is more to
this story. See below.
On yesterday's comments
Dr. Pournelle,
Your "Current View"
opinion of the actual results of the Vietnam War largely reflects my own.
As a young USAF officer, I was deeply ashamed at our failure to live up to
our commitments during the 1975 invasion of South Vietnam. Over the next
several years I boiled each time some airhead blamed the fallout from that
failure (boat people, reeducation camps, the Cambodian killing fields) on
the ten years or so of American involvement, rather than on our refusal to
resupply the South in their time of need. It was that refusal that took
the heart out of the South Vietnamese and led to their collapse.
At the time, Poul Anderson's Flandry series appeared
to be the remaining appropriate model for us professional military men.
Holding off the Long Night, one might say. It was only after the 1980
election and the rebuilding of our strength and purpose that I came to
realize that Vietnam was but one episode in the long struggle. While I
wouldn't go so far as to call it a victory, it certainly did contribute to
our success in the long run.
This truth struck me forcefully just last week. As a
USAF civil servant, currently serving at U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM),
I was sent to Prague to give a few briefings on our strategic air mobility
techniques within a NATO context. The military professionals of the Czech
Republic were very eager to learn our methods and were quite willing to
discuss the past over a few beers. They certainly had noticed the decline
of Soviet power, even as our own strength grew. The week ended with the
Czechs informally asking about the chances of a bilateral agreement for
airlift to enable them to more fully participate in NATO operations.
Victory, indeed.
I applaud your efforts to set the record straight.
This is especially helpful for all those Vietnam veterans who might still
suffer from the idea that our struggle in that unhappy country was a
useless effort. Their service there contributed materially to our eventual
triumph.
v/r, Mike Spehar, Major, USAF (Ret)
From: Steve Setzer Subject: the next 70 years' war
Jerry,
Thanks for the summary (Monday July 16 2001 VIEW)--you've said much of
it elsewhere, but that's a great capsule summary of some of the key long
term effects of Viet Nam.
Query:
1) Do you think it is as important to US security to take down the
Chinese Communists as it was to take down the USSR?
2) If the answer to 1 is "yes", is the area around Taiwan a
reasonable place to stage a war of attrition?
3) If the answer to 2 is "no" as I think it is, how else do
we get them to overstress their economy?
These are not intended as cynical questions, though they may be
viewable as such.
Steve S.
My own view is that the answer to
(1) above is "no". The Chinese are not the threat to the West
that the USSR was. To begin with, the legitimacy of the Chinese regime not
only does not rest on a chiliastic movement with the goal of reforming the
entire world, but doesn't even come close to it. The Chinese are not
terribly interested in barbarians, and don't show a lot of interest in
expansion beyond the greatest extent of the old Chinese Empire: and they
have most of that. They
are interested in the fate of overseas Chinese, but I don't think we need
worry about their interventions in San Francisco or Vancouver, BC. What
we do need is a realistic assessment of our objectives in the Far East,
including what obligations we have to Taiwan and Japan. These two are, I
would think, natural allies once they get over various prejudices. Of
course Korea fears Japan more than China. I
certainly do not think China a threat large enough to make war of any kind
attractive, whether waged by us or through client states. But then I don't
want client states, either. US
technology is or could be good enough to maintain a Navy and a defense
establishment pretty well invulnerable to anything any combination of
enemies could bring to bear in the next decade. But recall
the three metamissions.
Dr. Pournelle:
Yours is an interesting perspective on the Viet Nam
war. I recall a PBS documentary on the history of aerial bombing, with
perhaps a faint tinge of leftist propaganda to it, showing an American
RF-104 jet getting shot down by a North Vietnamese SAM crew, a "Home
Guard" unit of Vietnamese soldiers pulling the wrecked jet out of a
river, and a group of villagers melting down the aluminum to make pots and
pans. I suppose it was immensely satisfying if you were on the receiving
end of the bombardment to eat from pots made from the chariot of the enemy
warrior you had just killed, and I suppose PBS was making the point that a
Stone-Age society could defy the technical prowess of the American war
machine.
Missing from the equation was the SAM radar van,
erector-launcher truck, and the numerous SAM rounds one had to shoot for
every new batch of pots. Factoring that in, it was remarkably expensive
kitchenware coming out of Moscow.
On the other hand, using multi-million dollar jets
to blow up cheap Russian trucks had a certain kind of cost inefficiency --
somewhat like using million-dollar Patriot rounds to attempt to blow up
low-tech Scud missiles. To the extent that we were able to bankrupt the
Soviet Union in this manner suggests how poor they have always been.
The war exacted costs on America too: besides over
50,000 dead, it exacted a toll on the economy (i.e. the well being of
working men and women across the country), and it brought home a drug
problem which we still haven't licked. Was it the right decision is hard
to say, but yours is an interesting point that to view the war as a
pointless struggle between a superpower and a third-world country is
missing the big picture.
Paul Milenkovic Madison, Wisconsin
The alternatives were worse. It is
easy to forget just how much despair there was in the 60's and early 70's.
No less a figure than Henry Kissinger thought his mission was to negotiate
successful terms of surrender for the West letting us last as long as
possible. In a word,
most of the intellectual establishment and much of the political
establishment of the US thought the West was doomed. James Burnham's
observation that Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as
it commits suicide was not thought quaint at that time: it was in fact
what many believed. The number of people who thought like Possony --
"These tyrannies don't last" -- and Duke Kane and Bernard
Schriever who thought we could win through a Strategy
of Technology was quite small. It
was a silent and sometimes apparently peaceful war; but it was also a
protracted conflict and the US is not good at those. The campaign of
attrition in Viet Nam much hastened the collapse of the USSR. Today
we see that the USSR was a great deal more vulnerable than we supposed;
but in the 60's the CIA and the Department of State devoted considerable
resources to ridiculing Possony's estimates that the USSR was spending at
least 35% of its GNP on military stuff, and was in deep trouble. As late
as 1985 the US Army Intelligence estimates were that East Germany was
loyal to the Warsaw Pact, and that the East German economy was not much
below that of West Germany: this was taught to young intelligence officers
as truth and gospel. I have good reason to know this. They were also not
taught anything about irredentism and other concepts of international
politics. Again I have good reason to know. Viet
Nam was needless in the sense that we could have devised better
strategies. We did NOT devise better strategies, and were not about to do
so: and thus Viet Nam was quite necessary in bringing down the USSR.
Jerry,
Re your statement: Of
course that was the right strategy: to appear to be losing and stay in. I
doubt Bundy or Johnson or any of the generals understood that. I think
Possony did. At the time I did not; it was only later that I realized that
a war of attrition was precisely what would bring the USSR low, after
which the threat to negate the missiles and turn them into just another
3rd world country brought them down.
It seems logical now that Vietnam proved to be a
drain on the Soviet Union. However, do you think that anyone at all in a
position to influence the course of the war believed that at the time?
Wasn't the perception, at that time, that the Soviets had just as much
production capability as we did? (I was of draft age in 1969-70...and
loaded with testosterone so my memory of that time isn't clear!)
Mark Huth mhuth@coldswim.com
The moral arc of history is long indeed, but it
always bends toward justice. MLK
Most of the US establishment
believed that the USSR had a high production capability and that they
spent no more than 15% of their GNP on military equipment including what
they sent to Viet Nam. Some of us knew better, particularly Stefan T.
Possony, who had a continuing study of Soviet Leadership and economics for
the Air Council. Some influential members of the USAF and the US
Intelligence establishment -- Schriever and Kane, Daniel Graham, among
others -- knew better. No one
quite dared say that "lose it and stay in" was a good strategy.
In 1962 in a speech I made in Chicago I said as much, but the continuing
strain was enough that by 1968 I no longer believed it, and agitated for
quick and decisive action in Viet Nam. Only Possony seems to have know
better all along. He was also influential in paving the way for the de
facto alliance between the US and Red China. His lectures included
vulnerabilities of Soviet Asia to the Chinese. "And they they are out
of the Empire business when they lose Pacific Russia," he was fond of
saying. Some of his students were part of the Nixon establishment, and
although Kissinger purged all of Possony's people when he could identify
them, Nixon did go to China, and Kissinger did well in those negotiations. The
official view of the US was that the USSR was not in economic trouble.
Some of us knew better.
And Roland on the young man with his
science project:
Subject: That Kid
needs to go back to school. ZoneAlarm and TinyFirewall are both
minor-league.
Heh.
Roland Dobbins <mordant@gothik.org>
Which is of course true, if a
bit tactless. See the sidebar on security in my June/July BYTE.COM column.
On the other hand, that kid is at least aware that there is a
problem. The real
problem with minor league programs is that they may encourage you to feel
safe when you are not. On the other hand, they are better than nothing at
all.
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
Your site had a Rolland-supplied link (and just the
word "Beware") to a MS tech bulletin announcing another Outlook
leak - I'm not using Outlook, but I followed the link out of curiosity.
Here's what surprised me: the tech bulletin includes
a FAQ (on the same page, halfway down) and here's what I found:
[quote]
Frequently asked questions
The Summary section discusses a configuration change
rather than a patch. Why isn’t there a patch available for this issue?
The person who discovered this vulnerability has
chosen to handle it irresponsibly, and has deliberately made this issue
public only a few days after reporting it to Microsoft. It is simply not
possible to build, test and release a patch within this timeframe and
still meet reasonable quality standards.
[unquote]
I would think (and I must have read this argument a
few times over the years over the web) that it is better to announce such
vulnerabilities AT ONCE so that people interested in protecting themselves
can employ the work-arounds right away (e.g. disabling AptiveX controls,
etc) rather than wait weeks or months for Microsoft to address the issue.
They have the nerve to call people "irresponsible" for alerting
the rest of us. Microsoft must consider PR (ie, silence about MS software
vulnerabilities) more important than your data.
Cheers! François Kupo Ottawa
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/ms01-038.asp
I tend to agree with the view that
timely warning is best, but it depends. Most vulnerabilities are in fact
found by experts before they are exploited "in the wild", and
thus having the vulnerability and the fix released at once is best when
that is possible. Now
three from Roland Dobbins:
Subject: Russian arrested for giving talk 'in violation of the DMCA'
Thoughtcrimes come to America:
http://www.planetebook.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=165
Subject: The presentation that got a Russian arrested by the FBI at DefCon
Adobe PDF format, viewer available from http://www.adobe.com:
http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/defcon9_elcomsoft.pdf
Subject: More on Russian's arrest after
giving his presentation
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/20444.html Roland
Dobbins
This is a serious matter.
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