It Just Makes Sense

Most people agree that Barack Obama, the first-term Senator from Illinois and front runner for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee, is a handsome man with a voice tailor-made for public speaking. Even with all that going for him, the 137 words he used during a 52 second video suggest great peril awaits America if he should ever have the power to implement his ideas.

“I am the only major candidate who has opposed this war from the beginning, and as President I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars of wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems, and I will institute an independent, defense priorities board to ensure that the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending. Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal I will not develop new nuclear weapons I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal.”

A lot of Americans have grown weary of the war of attrition in the Iraqi theater of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). That’s actually part of attrition-war strategy–wear down your opponent physically and mentally. If that was all there was to it, we probably could just cut and run, unfortunately for Americans the other part of our enemies strategy is to kill us all. Surrender certainly “ends it,” but considering our enemies long-term vision, wouldn’t it be better to win it?

Along with ending the war, Obama seeks to end America’s technological edge over the same enemies that seek to kill us. Yes, it is easier and cheaper to build offensive missiles than it is to build a system to defend against them. But if we abandon our efforts to perfect, procure, and put into action missile defense systems, we actually encourage those who wish to kill us to build old-technology, offensive missiles.

Lacking a cutting-edge defensive system, we would have to depend on the Cold War concept of assuring our enemies we would use our offensive capabilities should they attack us. However, Barack Obama said he plans to remove that from America’s arsenal of options also. His logic is fundamentally flawed.

First of all, America and the Russians no longer control who develops nuclear weapons. North Korea dances to their own drummer, and Iran’s public defiance of UN and American pressures clearly demonstrates that our deterrence strategy, at least in that area, has failed. We have to face the reality that nations, controlled by people who want to kill us, will soon have multiple nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Ignoring the problem doesn’t defend America.

Secondly, the stultifying declaration that America’s ICBMs are on “hair-trigger alert” summons forth cartoonish images of uniformed simpletons hovering over a big red button. It naively disregards the multi-layered nuclear safeguards in effect, and aligns itself more with myriad low-budget movies from the 1960s and 70s than with any reality.

America’s nuclear arsenal has historically served as a deterrence against our enemies’ use of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, against us or our friends. In addition, it serves as a hedge against the sudden emergence of any other overwhelming threat. America has historically used nuclear weapons to keep the peace. Destroying our nuclear arsenal, especially in the light of the GWOT, could destroy the peace.

Finally, a nation with a over 300 million people can find other ways to defend itself without spending a lot of treasure. The solution would be to spend lots of lives. Using only 10% of our population, we could field an Army of 30 million soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets that could stop any invading army. Unless of course, they nuked us.

America needs to continue to use our two-fold blessings of leading-edge technology and an unprecedented wealth to field defensive forces using that technology. We are winning the GWOT, and we should not surrender ourselves or our allies to the terrorists. Surrendering to an enemy with a long-term vision of killing you is not going to “end“ anything.

It just makes sense.

Former President Jimmy Carter is planning to meet with the leader of Hamas next week during his nine-day tour of the middle east.  The State Department has advised him against such a meeting. Why would the State Department think Jimmy Carter, the founding father of the global terrorist movement that sparked our Global War on Terrorism, would listen to them?

According to the US State Department, Hamas is funded by Iran. Hamas can’t do what it does without funding. Iran wouldn’t fund Hamas if it wasn’t for Jimmy Carter’s policies during his long four-years as our leader.

Most Americans have either forgotten or never knew that Iran used to be one of our most dependable allies. Shah Mohammand Reza Pahlavi was praised by US Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. They trusted him with just about any technology and weapons we had, short of nuclear weapons. In spite of the sweeping reforms in the economic and social arena of Iran, there were still dark forces working against him.

With Soviet-sponsored Socialists, known as “Communists” scratching at the door of freedom while fledgling Islamic Fascism lurked in the shadows, our very own Jimmy Carter decided to wage a political war against the Shah’s human rights record.

The Shah was guilty of using military tribunals to jail about 3000 Communists, Islamic Fascists, and terrorists. Some of those prisoners were reported to have been tortured. Jimmy Carter referred to them as political prisoners and insisted the Shah release them and use civil courts to try them. The subsequent “civil” trials turned into soap-boxes for the prophets of evil to turn the masses against what Carter had called, “an island of stability in a trouble region.”

To make matters worse, Carter insisted that the Shah allow his people to have freedom of assembly, which resulted in propagating the seed of terrorism. The liberal-media broadcasted the anti-Shah rallies to the globe, and brought Ayatollah Khomeini, living in obscure exile, to celebrity status with the Iranian people. The PLO supplied weapons and terrorism experts to Khomeini’s legions to bloody the streets with their free-assemblies. The Shah initially used an iron fist of excessive military force to disperse the violent masses. Eventually the military switched allegiance, and the Shah fled to the United States, dying of cancer, while another cancer consumed the people of the one-time great ally of the United States. The once stable island was sunk.

What happened to the Shah’s prisoners? Khomeini freed the few he wanted, but the rest were murdered along with tens of thousands of westernized Iranians.

Freedom was set-back decades, while death and suffering flourished. Anything considered to be a freedom by Westerners was removed from the Iranian people. Minor infractions of the new Fascist regime was answered with arrests, tortures, or executions. The Soviets took advantage of the chaos and invaded Afghanistan. Carter responded with a boycott of the 1980 Olympics, which only punished American athletes.

Jimmy Carter said Khomeini was a “holy man” and he used ineffectual words through showy teeth to no avail. Most Americans have heard of the 444 days that the Americans from the US embassy were illegally held hostage by the Iranian government. The same day of President Reagan’s inauguration, the Iranians agreed to release the hostages. President Reagan allowed Jimmy Carter to make the announcement to the American public, possibly to help Jimmy Carter with his stained legacy.

By the way, Carter also failed miserably with the Cold War. Millions across Africa and even Central America were rolled into the Communists’ murderous leftist system. Thus, by the time Carter was leaving office, the West was losing the Cold War, Islamic Fascism controlled sovereign nations, and the US economy was failing in the face of double digit inflation. Thank you, Jimmy, and goodbye.

Since the Islamic Fascists don’t have nuclear weapons, or a first class military to fight us with, they chose terrorist attacks as the weapon of choice to kill us. Some say enough has been said about 9/11, but I wonder if we could ever say enough about that. Out of politeness, the US usually says very little about Jimmy Carter failures, but he keeps talking.

Despite the lessons about evil that Jimmy Carter should have learned from his failed presidency, he continues to excrete some outlandish opinions.

For instance, in 2004 during an interview on MSNBC, Jimmy Carter tried to explain that all wars are bad. He said the Revolutionary War was an unnecessary war. Imagine that!

The establishment of the United States was the single most pivotal event towards human liberty since the resurrection of Christ, yet Jimmy Carter believes that a nation founded on the principles of our Declaration of Independence and then our Constitution was unnecessary. Unnecessary!

And now he is going to consort with Hamas in Syria. Why not? It is right in line with everything Jimmy Carter has done in international affairs. This meeting will probably give Hamas more prestige, and just quicken them in their efforts to do more violence.

While Jimmy Carter is the closest thing to a Founding Father of global terrorism, he did win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. But don’t let that sway any negative opinions you have of the man, since it only gives him more in common with Yasser Arafat, Gorbachev, and Algore–prize winners all.

Jimmy Carter uses talk as the solution to all international problems. Talk is cheap, but the result of talk, where action needs to be taken, can be the most costly of all possible actions. In some cases, talk is nothing–it is really inaction.

When the decision-makers in the United States fail to take action, when they could have, to protect American lives from terrorists, they turn the government of the United States into a terrorist organization.

Jimmy Carter’s inaction as President was a dishonor to those that came before him and a danger to those who came after him.

He had his say in his day, but that day is done. Nations fell, and hundreds of thousands have died, and maybe millions more will because of what came out of his mouth. America voted his incompetent ideas out of office back in 1980. He does not speak for America today.

It just makes sense.

In response to rising gasoline prices, many Americans have chosen to spend more time at home. In addition to slightly reducing demand for gasoline, it presents an opportunity for that “quality time” so many wealth-seeking experts told us in the last decade would fix our family woes. But other things are keeping us at home too.

Grocery bills are rising, but so are restaurant prices. Food costs are helping Americans to decide to eat at home a little more. Some folks say that might be good for our waistlines, but that’s more of a stupid comment than a solution-oriented discussion.

We’re in trouble.

As oil prices sky-rocket, it is producing a cascading effect into everything else we buy.

Petroleum price increases the costs for transportation, packaging, and processing every consumer good we use–including food. Global food prices are just starting to show the systemic influence of high oil prices. This will affect all the nations.

Even in times of feast for Americans, food shortages are all over the world. Americans have a long history of trying to feed the world out of our charity-mindedness. However as Americans feel the crunch of oil and food based inflation, the shortages around the world will increase. When the crunch hits America hard enough, our charitable givings will slow and maybe decrease, who knows–maybe even stop.

People will starve.

Before they starve, they will seek food using all means available to them. They will riot, loot, kill and even form organized raids into other communities. Some nations will go to war. For food. Then the people will suffer from starvation and war.

America will feel an obligation to do something about the wars. It will take a while before we learn to just watch the other folks around the world kill themselves while we try to balance our budget. Thankfully, we’re not at that point yet.

Some have argued that the solution to the food problem is just to grow more food. Sounds simple enough, but that takes energy. Increased energy demands will drive the price of oil higher, making everything, including food, cost more. We really can’t fix this problem until we fix the energy problem.

Interestingly, one solution is to use a portion of our food supply to make biofuels. Using grain that would normally feed cattle to stretch petroleum reserves causes the price of grain and then of beef to rise. At the same time, transportation and processing costs increase because the cost of oil continues to climb.

Billions or maybe even trillions of barrels of oil lay under a frozen north, hidden in shale, or off the coast of the United States. The American government has rules and laws in place that prevent the harvesting of those energy resources. Well, at least it prevents US oil companies from drilling there. The 36 Cuban oil wells operated by Chinese oil companies as close as 50 miles off the coast of Florida will not extract oil fast enough to stop the starvations that will probably happen within the next few years.

All this sounds a little like a well-meaning man trying to survive the winter in a forest. He doesn’t want to hurt the trees because his teacher told him in the third-grade that trees are people too. So he burns his coat to stay warm for a while. Eventually he faces the winter cold without a coat or a fire. He is then faced with the choice of freezing or growing a brain.

We need to grow a brain.

It just makes sense.

No! God has not damned America.

To the contrary, He has never blessed another nation to any greater extent.  And no other nation has blessed the world to any greater extent.  The relationship between giving blessings and being blessed can be a precarious one.

For instance, the initial group of Americans were blessed with miracle after miracle in shucking off the yoke of a mortal king.  A new nation was formed.   It was an imperfect union.  Yet, it was more perfect than anything else on earth.

As time went on, many challenges arose.  Our elected leaders made choices, based off of a set of values that were passed down to them from history.  As “acceptable” changed, we changed.  Some of the most influential voices during our revolution and then formative years of the nineteenth century were from the pulpit.

We eventually battled with ourselves.  Killing a million Americans, laying waste to several states, and from the ashes we rebuilt ourselves into a single United States called America.

Then America offered its youth to rescue Europe, and maybe even humanity, from the horrors of the “Great War.”  While our work was global, our leadership was pushed to the backseat of the world order that followed.  A generation later, the world was in the grasps of National Socialism and other shades of Totalitarianism that threatened to snuff out the last hope of individual freedoms.

Fortunately, America chose to once again answer the call for help.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives for the millions who were dying at the hands of evil from that mid-twentieth century global war.  Our outlay of treasure for the cause was without equal in history.  After the dirty part of stopping evil was done, America demanded a front seat in global leadership.

Since then Americans have continued to freely give their lives and treasures so that the world might have a chance to know peace, prosperity, and liberty.  America is the bright, shining city on a hill that leads the world with her productivity, prosperity, and technology.

Even when America was attacked on 9/11 she showed great concern for humanity.  Possessing the power to kill by the tens-of-millions, America showed great restraint by choosing to surgically removing two evil governments from power, freeing their people, and teaching them to fight the terrorists lurking in their midst.  It takes a long time, and it cost a lot to do it like that.  America has a long history of investing in peace with it’s blessing of technology and treasure.  Likewise Americans don’t just rely on their elected government to organize all the investments.  Billions of dollars are collected by Americans by way of private organizations that do what they can to make life better for folks at home and abroad.  Many American dedicate their lives to going to strange, often wild lands just so they can help others.  Too many of those folks ultimately give their lives in that quest to bless others.

These blessings are not unnoticed by the all powerful, all knowing God.  He blesses America because America is good.

The occasional corrupted clergy-person may be able to whip his congregations into a frenzy with poetic lies to the contrary.  While it might keep hate alive, and promote the growth of racism in his flock, it won’t change God’s perspective.

God is never fooled.

Oh certainly, America is still less than perfect.  The holocaust on America’s unborn will be a stain on our country forever.  Individual Americans will continue to commit horrible crimes like pedophilia-based crimes, rape, and murder.  Some American politicians will violate the trust given to them by lying, cheating, stealing, and tolerating others that also do.

Yes, tolerating them is bad too.  You can’t always be a uniter, sometimes you have to divide the goats from the sheep.

But even with all this imperfection, there is still enough good in America for God to tarry with his judgment on the world.

Yes, America is imperfect, but it is still more perfect than any other nation.  God is still blessing America for being good.

While past blessing performance is no guarantee of a nation’s future favor with God, they do provide a common-sense guide for future sermons.

It just makes sense.

OIL SURGES TO $500 A BARREL, RIOTS IN CONGRESS

By The Chuck
15 March 2028

WASHINGTON–Oil prices finally broke the $500 a barrel threshold, closing slightly lower at $499.69 by the end of the day.  Once considered impossible by the petroleum market experts, the breaking of this barrier suggests the price of oil will never stabilize.  After the markets closed, President Jose Villa called an emergency session of Congress.

“We’ve waited long enough!  The increasing demand for oil, as our world has suffered the harshest winters in recorded history over the last decade, has drastically brought about our economic downfall.  Now is the time to act.  It might even be to late too undo the damage.”

President Villa’s critics were rebuked by thousand of protesters, who were able to rush past Capitol Police barricades.  It took almost an hour to clear out the protesters, and another two hours to clear out the effects of the tear gas.  Nevertheless the halls of congress were cleared and the session continued.

Since the implosion of the Democratic Party in 2012 and then the Republican Party in 2016, political debates have often erupted into violence.  Fortunately during Friday’s clash, only three people were killed with less than thirty requiring hospitalization. Speaker of the House Jung Mao required medical attention from on-scene medics due to a head wound from a thrown brick.

Members of the America First Party accused Villa of organizing the violence by using supporters of his Norte American Republic Party.  A fact he flatly denied.

“The people are just upset because the price of oil is destroying their lifestyles.  I’m submitting a bill to congress that we harvest the 10.5 billion barrels of oil in ANWAR.  In addition, the oil shale in Green River Basin contains nearly 2 trillion barrels of oil we can use.  And finally, we need to drill the oil fields  off the coast of Florida.  We have been transferring our national wealth to foreign lands for too long.”  The members of the Norte American Republic Party gave Villa a standing ovation.  However there are many obstacles to overcome before this can become a reality.

Currently China, the largest economic power in the world, operates over a hundred oil platforms in the international waters off the coast of Florida for Cuban companies.  It is not expected that the Chinese government will let any attempts by the US to drill in what has been their oil harvesting region for the last 20 years go without challenge.

President Villa is still a very popular leader and is expected to win his re-election bid later this year.  Some noteworthy accomplishments were going back on the gold standard in 2025, fixing the value of gold at $3500 an ounce and then convincing India to allow a US astronaut to go along on their 2027 voyage to Mars.

Getting an American back into space was a moment of great national pride, especially  after the humiliating eviction from the Moon by Japanese landlords in 2022.  If the energy crisis can be overturned, the US might even restart their decommissioned  space program, as long as they can get a permit from the United Nations space regulators.

Wait!  It’s only 2008, and we still have time.

The United States has many challenges in front of us. If we don’t use things to our advantage, someone else will win the advantage.

It just makes sense.

According to the Associated Press, the Air Force will change the way bomber crews organize for their nuclear training missions.  B-52 crews will train exclusively for nuclear missions for 6-months at a time, maybe even 12 months.

This is supposed to be the solution to fix part of the process that resulted in some serious mistakes in the handling of nuclear weapons back in August.  However, the Air Force had better be careful when it comes to executing this strategy.

A reader of the Feb 29 news story could be led into believing that B-52 crews will begin some kind of cycle where they transition between nukes and non-nuclear training missions.  Let’s consider the flow.

One scenario might be, the crews begin a 6-month cycle of nuke training.  At first the crews will be astonished at how little they really know about nukes.  Then about the time the cycle is completed, they will finally be comfortable with the mission.  

But then they have to go back to the C-mission only to discover that they’ve forgotten a lot of things.  Without a doubt, they will have lost their edge.  After a month or so, they will build their proficiency and almost be ready to deploy, which they will.  They’ll live the C-mission once again, while they support the ground operations of the Global War of Attrition on Terrorism.  But eventually the party will end.

They’ll start another N-mission cycle, only to discover they’ve forgotten a lot of things.  After a  few months, they’ll be as good as new.  Rinse and reapply.

In the end, we’ll have a process where the B-52 crews are uncomfortable with their mission about 1/3 of the time.  There has to be a better way.  Here it is:

Assign a B-52 squadron a nuke mission.  Keep the others units conventional.  This way, the Air Force will always have a fully competent, capable, and confident nuclear B-52 force.  Meanwhile the conventional tasked B-52 units will be able to concentrate on the knowledge and skills required to support the AEF missions.

Some folks might argue that the nuke squadron will at a disadvantage when it comes to promotions because they won’t be logging combat hours.   However, all but the most junior B-52 crewmembers have logged plenty of combat sorties since the GWOT began.  Veteran aircrews could be assigned to the nuke squadron.  Their previous combat time should be sufficient to satisfy any combat squares that need checking to demonstrate their leadership potential.  

Following the First Gulf War, six months worth of combat sorties carried many aviators from captain up to colonel and even beyond for some, all without additional combat time.  Besides, if the officers sitting on promotions boards can’t understand the leadership potential of qualified nuclear crews even if they haven’t orbited over Asia for long hours, the Air Force has already promoted the wrong people.  Finally, the purpose of military service isn’t for promotion.  The core values are declared to be integrity first, service before self, and excellence in everything they do.

Just as the decathlon champion does not take the Olympic gold medal in each of the separate events, or as the medical general practitioner does not replace a neurologist, we live in an age of specialists.  We need a cadre of heavy bomber nuclear experts.

It just makes sense.

Five percent attrition of a fleet is serious degradation, especially when it happens in one day.  It sounds like something that would happen to a military force after a hard-fought battle.  Its like losing 64 F-16s, or 26 KC-135s, or 4 B-52s.  What is was, was a single B-2.

It’s too early for us to know why the aircraft crashed shortly after take-off in Guam this weekend, but we do know that the two pilots survived the ejection.  One pilot is still hospitalized with the customary spinal-compression injury.  Ejection is a terribly violent experience.  Somebody must have been praying for them.

Smart pilots honor the potential danger of their ejection seats.  Honor is a bit like fear.  Nobody really wants to eject, the idea of it is scary.  Typically a pilot knows it is time to “bail-out” when his fear of staying in the aircraft exceeds his fear of ejecting.  So what caused the fear?

It might have been a fire, but we’ll know for sure later.

The Air Force is performing a professional investigation, after which it will reveal all those details to those who need to know.  Ultimately that information will be used to make the B-2 a better weapon system.

Somebody once said, “That which doesn’t kill us, only makes us stronger.”  Losing five percent of a fleet doesn’t sound like we’re getting stronger.

The price-tag of the advanced technology jet has brought some attention to this crash, but the question of how much the loss of one aircraft from a small fleet degrades the overall force hasn’t been addressed. The B-2 has been around for 20 years, and this is the first crash.  Not a bad record, but we only made 21 of them.  In comparison, over 700 B-52s were built.  Of course, things were different then.

It’s like supply and demand.  The fewer of something you have, the more it’s worth.  And we’re not going to make any more of the bat-winged bombers. So now each Spirit is worth even more, at least when it comes to accomplishing the mission.

The Global War on Terrorism has demonstrated that the freedom forces need heavy bombers.  The F-22 fleet’s size gets plenty of attention, as does the F-35’s.  While those jets have great promise for what they  are designed to do, they’re not heavy bombers.  The bomber roadmap needs to consider our peacetime attrition.  It is overly optimistic to plan on no losses.  Even the best Air Force in the world occasionally loses one.

Above all, we need to plan for that when we build all of our air fleets.

It just makes sense.

It can be argued as to when the terrorists began their war against the world. It was certainly before the suicide-terrorist attacks of 9/11. Some say it began in 1983 Lebanon with the horrific suicide-terrorist attack on our Marine barracks, others say it began in 1979 Tehran with the unlawful invasion and seizure of the US Embassy. Some historians argue that it was much earlier during the Crusades of the 11th century or even at the beginning of the Muslim invasions of their neighbors dating back to the 7th and 8th centuries. Regardless of when the terrorists began their war against the rest of the world, the United States began fighting with a purpose after 9/11.

Our President called it the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).   He established objectives that were refined and spelled out in the 2006 publication National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, also known as the NMSP-WOT:

1. Deny terrorists the resources they need to operate and survive
2. Enable partner nations to counter terrorism.
3. Deny WMD/E proliferation, recover and eliminate uncontrolled materials, and increase capacity for consequence management.
4. Defeat terrorists and their organizations.
5. Counter state and non-state support for terrorism in coordination with other U.S. Government agencies and partner nations
6. Contribute to the establishment of conditions that counter ideological support for terrorism.

The NMSP-WOT identifies the enemy as “extremists.”  The extremists oppose the right of people to live as they chose and they support the murder of ordinary people to advance their ideology.  Moderates or mainstreams are the folks who don’t support the extremists and oppose the killing of ordinary people.  Finally, terrorists are those who conduct acts of terrorism.  It goes on to stress that this is not a war between Islam and the West and then refers to some of the extremist organizations in the transnational movement responsible for the terrorism.

It even spells out an end state, sometimes referred to a better-state-of-peace:

“The national strategic aims are to defeat violent extremism as a threat to our way of life as a free and open society; and create a global environment inhospitable to violent extremists and all who support them.”

Victory is achieved only after those aims are met.

In 2006, Mitt Romney referred to the enemy as “jihadists” suggesting more than extreme behavior, but also extreme belief. His web site declared that victory will be achieve through a combination of American resolve, international effort, and the rejection of violence by moderate, modern, mainstream Muslims. He stressed that we need to support modern Muslim nations both militarily and diplomatically.

While the NMSP-WOT spells out a theoretic strategy that appears sound, the practice of the GWOT appears to be more of a war of attrition.  We seem to have so limited the definitions of the enemy that our fielded forces invest most of their time killing individuals, occasionally capturing or killing one of the ring-leaders and confusing that with strategic success.

Strategic effects are those that have far-reaching consequences with a cascading effect that result in paralysis of the enemy.  Killing foot soldiers, even a few of their regional leaders is not strategic if there is a continual supply of replacements.  The surge’s success in the Iraqi Theater of the GWOT worked well towards satisfying GWOT objectives 2 and 4.  But the results will be temporary if the terrorists/extremists/jihadists are allowed to rebuild their forces.  GWOT objectives 1, 5, and 6 are essential to achieving victory.

The seemingly endless supply of willing replacements for the attrited terrorists has to be denied.  Otherwise we will be forced to continue to kill them, one at a time, as they present themselves.  If that happens, this war of attrition could easily last the 100 years John McCain has talked about.

State and nonstate support to the terrorists has to become completely unprofitable.  Leaders must be convinced they will face the same consequences as Saddam Hussein and the former leaders of Afghanistan before they will alter their policies.  And ultimately, a counter ideology has to be established before victory can be won.

Shortly after 9/11, columnist Ann Coulter wrote the politically incorrect statement that we should, “invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” That statement generated a lot of criticism for her as it ironically blended the horrors of 9/11 with harsh Western humor and pointed out the realization that Western religious tolerance, which is sometimes credited with making us strong, may be our greatest weakness. Conversion to Christianity has always been by the word, not by the sword.

Since we obviously lack the national resolve to execute Ms Coulter’s suggestion, we must develop a different strategic course of action that renders terrorism equally unacceptable to the present supporters and future recruits of the violent extremists.

It just makes sense.

Defending a nation has always required the service of strong people who often traded their health, limbs, and sometimes their lives so that the other citizens could sleep safely in their beds at night. In first century Rome it was not much different leaving substantial numbers of disabled veterans depended on the state for small pensions that sustained their modest lifestyles.

Then there was Caligula, the infamous Roman Emperor noted for his unquenchable desires, who decided to entertain the people by clubbing hundreds of disabled veterans to death in the Coliseum.  His joy was two-fold, while pretending to be a warrior the spindly sovereign helped balance his national budget by eliminating some fixed costs. Such behavior is repugnant to any observer of history who possesses even a modicum of humanity.

Today, the United States is fighting a global war, another way of saying world war, against an enemy who wants to disrupt the sleep of our citizens. The strong people who stand watch and do violence as required on this enemy often trade their health, limbs, and sometimes their lives for us.  Caring for those that survive the ordeal of service requires a cost.  Modern health care is more expensive than it was in 1st century Rome, but our longevity and quality of life is greater too.

So far, no one has suggested murdering our veterans to balance the defense budget, but other things are being done to them that endanger their health.  Just a few years ago a system called Tricare replaced a system without an annual fee.  At the time, some argued that it reneged on the promises of the past, but the argument was brushed aside because the fees were smaller than most civilian plans.  Those fees were designed to offset some of the cost of health care by collecting money from the veterans.  The resistance faded and the system went into effect.

Soon it was argued that having smaller fees for Tricare than for plans like Blue Cross, encouraged retirees to actually use the program resulting in a high cost to the defense budget.  Some proposed modifications to Tricare appeared to be designed to force retirees to abandon Tricare altogether and to seek healthcare elsewhere.  While it is not quite as horrible as Caligula’s clubbing of Rome’s veterans in the Coliseum, it is still a shame that the past service of our 20 to 30+ year veterans is not being held in high esteem.

The bean-counters in the Pentagon aren’t completely to blame.  All of us who served during the 80s and 90s experienced shrinking or eliminated entitlements.  Self-help was the mantra of how to get things done.  Costs were “transferred” from the budget to money acquired through fund-raisers or squadron dues.  And now when the budget spinners talk about “increasing revenues” they really mean collecting money from retirees’ pensions.

Balancing the defense budget on the wallets of retirees is repugnant.  Congress should fully fund military health care to stop the Pentagon budget planners from continually searching for ways to loot retirees of their hard-earned pensions.

It just makes sense.

The air and space operations center (AOC) is a weapon system.  We’ve heard it said so many times lately that it generally goes without intellectual challenge.  But maybe we should make sure that we understand what a weapon system is before much more energy goes into this concept.

It’s difficult to find a standard definition for the term “weapon system”.

The on-line DOD dictionary provides the Joint definition: “A combination of one or more weapons with all related equipment, materials, services, personnel, and means of delivery and deployment (if applicable) required for self-sufficiency.”  The same dictionary doesn’t define “weapon” so it might leave a person with some questions as to how the Air Force is using the term.  Is a command center a weapon?  Is an airplane a weapon?  What is a weapon?

While the Army publication “United States Army Weapon Systems” doesn’t define the term, it does list about 129 things that it declares to be weapon systems ranging from rockets, aircraft, and vehicles to an aircrew ensemble, and even a tactical operations center (TOC).  The broad-brush approach the Army uses with the term seems to mean it is anything that can be or is used by a soldier to do a job.  Certainly an AOC falls into that definition.

But what does the Air Force mean when it uses the term?  While “weapon system” is not defined in Air Force doctrine, it has been used by airmen for decades.  I can’t find it written anywhere, but we use it as a synonym for airplane.

However, by saying weapons system, we distinguished it from the manufacturer’s product with the understanding that the airplane was an essential part of a system which had dedicated operators, support folks, processes, procedures, and roles that all came together to support the fly, fight, and win mission of the Air Force.  Being associated with a weapon system has always meant that your career would follow a certain geographical/functional track until such time as you separated, retired, or administratively removed that association.  It defined your purpose as an airman.

So what’s wrong with that?

Nothing, if we keep our heads about us.  We know, the Air Force has a history of standardizing our weapon systems.  The manufacturer standardizes the airframe, but if the rest of it went freestyle there would be no interoperability between like units and thus efficiency would be lost.  We want a B-52 stationed in Minot to organize and train pretty much the same way a B-52 stationed at Barksdale does.  The same idea applies to all the other “weapon systems” in the Air Force, from C-17 to F-22.

Of course that only applies within a weapon system.  No airman would ever think of trying to force F-22s to be standardized with B-52 processes, roles, and procedures:  stuffing five crewmembers into the cockpit of an F-22 would be ludicrous; loading it with 200,000 pounds of jet fuel would be dangerous and impossible; not using the capabilities of the F-22 to fly, fight, and win against our enemies would be criminal.  That’s probably why the Air Force doesn’t refer to a base or wing as a weapon system.  All bases, like all wings are not alike.  They’re different.

What about AOCs?  Are they more like airplanes or airbases?

When Lockheed Martin Corp was awarded the contract to serve as the AOC Weapon System Integrator, the press release referred to 23 AOC sites:  five Falconer AOCs for theater operations; four “tailored” Falconer AOCs for homeland and strategic defense; two functional AOCs for space and mobility; and 12 AOC support functions for integration/testing/assessment, technical support, training, backup, and augmentation.  If in the process of “standardizing” all these AOCs, the Air Force attempts to make them one-size-fits-all, we’ll be taking a process that needed some work and turning it into one that might not work at all.

General Keys once said, “The AOC is fundamental to what makes us great as an Air Force.  If you have a group of airplanes but you don’t have an AOC, you don’t really have an air force, you have a flying club.”  We can’t mess up the AOC and expect to remain great.

The Air Force has made great strides towards correcting many of the problems that General Keys addressed back in 2003, proper training and management of resources.  With a formal training unit in place, AOC personnel now attend centralized initial qualification training and move to their respective AOC to attain their combat mission ready status through their unit training programs.  The AOCs are now working better than ever.

When it comes to standardizing the AOCs, maybe the airman’s view should be that AOC is like a base and the software is the weapon system.  After all, if bombers are tasked to disrupt, destroy, or degrade our enemy, airmen assigned to bases operate weapon systems to generate desired effects.  Likewise when an AOC is tasked to accomplish something, airmen operate software to generate effects.  Viewing software as a weapon system requires us to use a cyberspace perspective in relating the company that produces the software to an aerospace company that makes aircraft; the personnel that operate the software to aircrews that fly airplanes; and the personnel that support the platforms that enable the software to the entire support structure behind the success of our airplanes.

If software is considered the “weapon” in the DOD definition of a weapon system, the airman’s traditional paradigm of being tied to a weapon system becomes easier to grasp.  Using this cyberspace perspective may be the key to avoiding inflexible design in regards to which capabilities can be added to an AOC’s inventory.  If so, then the goal of organizing AOCs for useful data exchange through focused connectivity and interoperability would remain the challenge.  The AOC should be viewed more like a base is viewed.While some Air Force bases are very similar, each base is a little different from the others. Nevertheless, all the units assigned to each base must cooperate within certain parameters to meet the objectives of that base. It is through the diversity of complimentary capabilities throughout the world-wide network of bases that the Air Force is able to remain the nation’s primary air and space power.

It just makes sense.