Infamy Day

 

The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.

Eighteen months earlier, 32 had transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed deterrent to Japanese aggression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937, badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued. 

In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was virtually inevitable. 

By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan's diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well. 

The U.S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on the World's oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December. Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400 Americans were dead.

Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya. 

These great Japanese successes, achieved without prior diplomatic formalities, shocked and enraged the previously divided American people into a level of purposeful unity hardly seen before or since. For the next five months, until the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, Japan's far-reaching offensives proceeded untroubled by fruitful opposition. 

American and Allied morale suffered accordingly. Under normal political circumstances, an accomodation might have been considered. 

However, the memory of the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on.

Once the Battle of Midway in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan's striking power, that same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and remove her, and her German and Italian allies, as future threats to World peace.

Source - US Navy Historical Center
 

Pic - "Pearl Harbor"

WoW!!

WoW - the Watchers Council- it's the oldest, longest running cyber comte d'guere ensembe in existence - started online in 1912 by Sirs Jacky Fisher and Winston Churchill themselves - an eclective collective of cats both cruel and benign with their ability to put steel on target (figuratively - natch) on a wide variety of topictry across American, Allied, Frenemy and Enemy concerns, memes, delights and discourse.

Every week these cats hook up each other with hot hits and big phazed cookies to peruse and then vote on their individual fancy catchers.

Thusly sans further adieu (or a don"t)

Council Winners

• *First place with 2 and 2/3 votes!–The Noisy Room – Chicago’s Communists Lead Anti-Cop Protests Over McDonald Shooting
• Second place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – Some of us (i.e., me) predicted Ted Cruz’s rise in the polls months ago
• Second place *t* with 2 1/3 votes –The Right Planet – The Censors at Facebook
• Third place *t* with 1 2/3 votes –Joshuapundit–The EU’s Israel ‘Labeling’ Farce – Cutting Your Nose To Spite Your Face
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Nice Deb – Everything Bad Skyrockets Under Obama, Part II
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –VA Right! – Why I Am Supporting Donald Trump
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Maggie’s Notebook – Texas Ranchers Blamed for Illegals Dying in the Brush on their Land
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Fausta’s Blog – Venezuela issuing passports, voter registrations, to Hezbollah & Syrians
• Fifth place with 1/3 votes –Puma By Design – Rahm Emanuel Terminates Chicago Police Chief

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 votes! –Matthew Bracken–Tet, Take Two – Islam’s 2016 European Offensive submitted by The Noisy Room
• Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Zero Hedge – Top U.S. Air Defense Commander: Turkey’s Shootdown of Russian Jet “Had to Be PRE-PLANNED” submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –David Harsanyi/ The Federalist – Why Can’t We Talk About Islam Honestly? submitted by Joshuapundit
• Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –Andrew McCarthy/NRO –The Controversy over Syrian Refugees Misses the Question We Should Be Asking submitted by Nice Deb
• Second place *t* with 1 1/3 votes –David Goldman/PJ Media–Top 10 Reasons to Vote For Ted Cruzsubmitted by Bookworm Room
• Third place with 1 vote –Daniel Greenfield/FrontPage – Rename the Racist Democratic Party submitted by The Right Planet
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes -John Hawkins/Townhall –The Conservative Case For Ted Cruz submitted by Maggie’s Notebook
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Jane’s.com – Chinese Bombers Affirm ADIZ Claims in East China Sea submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Ben Domenech/The Federalist –Stop Blaming Pro-Lifers For The Colorado Springs Shooting submitted by Puma By Design
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The Other McCain – Crazy People Are Dangerous submitted by The Watcher
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Gavin McInnes/Taki’s Magazine –Give Hate A Chance submitted by The Razor
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Liberty Unyielding – What really happened in the Colorado Springs shooting? submitted by Fausta’s Blog
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –News.Com AU – Behind the ‘white student unions’ springing up at Australian universitiessubmitted by VA Right!

See you next week!

The Utility of Force

Carl von Clausewitz, the greatest of all military theorists, learned the art of war the hard way. As a senior Prussian officer, he was on the receiving end of the Napoleonic revolution in warfare at the Battle of Jena in 1806, ending up a prisoner. Watching how Bonaparte used the French army to redraw the map of Europe convinced Clausewitz that war was “not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means”

Clausewitz had witnessed a revolution not of technology but of mobilization and motivation. Under Bonaparte, war had become “the business of the people.” Raising larger armies than ever before, inspiring them with nationalist fervor, concentrating their attack on the enemy’s weakest spot and then annihilating the enemy’s forces: these were the essential traits of what Clausewitz called “absolute war.” In his view, its advent made political control of the military more important than ever before.

Now in the New Millennium, British General Rupert Smith gives us "The Utility of Force."

GEN Smith is a Clausewitzian in a world changed in at least two fundamental ways since the days of Napoleonic warfare. In the century after Waterloo, war became industrialized as mass armies were equipped with ever more lethal killing machines. More recently, a new paradigm has emerged: war amongst people rather than war between peoples.

This is a big deal. “War no longer exists,” he boldly declares, “as battle in a field between men and machinery” or “as a massive deciding event in a dispute in international affairs.”

Utility of Force goes beyond the now commonplace observations that wars are increasingly waged by “nonstate actors” and with unprecedented media coverage. His point is that the aim of war has changed. Thus, in the current sitch, the “underlying purpose” of the insurgents is really “to provoke a violent reaction, or preferably an escalation of violence, which could be used to show the people of Iraq what a ruthless lot the U.S.-led invaders are. ... The strategic aim of the coalition forces is to show the same people how bad the insurgents are and how good they themselves are. Both are fighting each other amongst the people, over the will of the people ... to influence the intentions of the people.”

n the final third of the book, the General uses six themes to describe the new paradigm of war:

• The ends for which we fight are changing from the hard objectives that decide a political outcome to those of establishing conditions in which the outcome may be decided
• We fight amongst the people, not on the battlefield
• Our conflicts tend to be timeless, even unending
• We fight so as to preserve the force rather than risking all to gain the objective
• On each occasion new uses are found for old weapons and organizations which are the products of industrial war
• The sides are mostly non-state, comprising some form of multinational grouping against some non-state party or parties.

It discusses modern guerrilla and insurgency campaigns, including various civil wars and ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa. The conflicts he discusses in the second half are almost all "wars amongst the people" and appear intractable to conventional forces. Smith analyses situations in which countries have adapted their tactics in order to respond to "war amongst the people", such as those used by Israeli forces in response to Palestine's Intifada, in which the Israelis resorted to targeted searches when superior firepower proved ineffective.

 He points out that modern wars are rarely fought between individual nations, but the parties often consist of supranational coalitions or sub-state entities, and that Western governments in particular fight in such a way as to keep casualties and material losses to a minimum.

Somewhat critical of the conduct of the American-led coalition in Iraq during the insurgency which followed the initial invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003;  He believes that the commanders were working at a tactical rather than a strategic level, and that operations were not sufficiently guided by intelligence—relying too heavily on battlefield strength and assessments of the insurgents' technical capabilities, rather than their political objectives.

In his conclusion, Smith states his belief that modern politicians and military leaders use force where it has no utility and commit military forces without fully defined political and strategic objectives. He believes that politicians and generals remain in the mindset of industrial war, which leads them to prepare for a decisive confrontation that never happens, and he condemns them for failing to recognise the shift in the way wars are fought

Declare War On ISIL

Is it time to go all out and get medievel on ISIS' assets?

Congressional debate over 44’s authority to combat the Islamic State flared, then quickly quieted after he introduced his AUMF in February. The two parties couldn’t agree on the scope of the president’s authority, and 44 didn’t want too much of it at all.

As WaPo described it, “the  administration has found itself caught in a position of sounding the alarm about potential terrorist attacks ... but offering a war resolution that includes limits on the scope of battle against the Islamic State.”

Now, the Paris terror attacks have spurred some senators to call for renewed discussion about combatting the Islamic State. Kaine, Flake, and Senator Dianne Feinstein—who suggested that the U.S. look beyond its bombing campaign—have all publicly advocated for Congress to do more. And Graham announced in mid-November that he’ll be introducing his AUMF, which according to a recent Post story has no temporal or geographic constraints, and doesn’t forbid the use of American boots on the ground.

Similarly, in a post-Paris Time op-ed, Kaine and Flake took Congress to task for abdicating “its fundamental duty to debate, vote on, and shape the extent of the current war on ISIS”:

A Congressional debate, at long last, about this war on ISIS will educate the American public about the stakes involved. It will force the administration to give thought to, and lay out a clear strategy that encompasses military and non-military dimensions—including diplomatic and humanitarian measures—for degrading and ultimately destroying ISIS, and for U.S. involvement with other nations in this struggle. It should let our troops, our allies and our adversaries know of our unity and resolve. Finally, it will vindicate the Constitutional role of Congress in making the sober decision about when military force is necessary.

For now, Congress seems more or less content with 44 using a 2001 resolution to justify anti-Islamic State military operations.

Though the Founding Framers wanted Congress to decide when America goes to war, its members haven’t really tried to decide at all—not many months after military operations have already started and not after a terrorist attack.

Whahabi Lobby

Inshallah!

For more than two centuries, Wahhabism has been Saudi Arabia's dominant faith. It is an austere form of Mohammedism that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran. Strict Wahhabis believe that all those who don't practice their form of Mohammedism are heathens and enemies.

Critics say that Wahhabism's rigidity has led it to misinterpret and distort Mohammedism, pointing to extremists such as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Wahhabism's explosive growth began in the 1970s when Saudi charities started funding Wahhabi schools (madrassas) and mosques from Islamabad to Culver City, California.

This is not just the “Middle East problem”; it is our problem, too

One of these regimes is Saudi Arabia. Despite its dismal human rights record, the kingdom has been central to western foreign policy in the Middle East since the 1970s and western governments have therefore tacitly condoned its “Wahhabisation” of Mohammedist world. Wahhabism originated in the Arabian peninsula during the 18th century as an attempt to return to the pristine Islam of the Prophet Muhammad. Hence, Wahhabis came to denounce all later developments – such as Sufism and Shia Mohammedism – as heretical innovations.

Yet this represented a radical departure from the Quran, which insists emphatically that there must be “no coercion in matters of faith” (2:256) and that religious pluralism is God’s will (5:48). After the Iranian Revolution, the Saudis used their immense wealth to counter the power of Shia Mohammedism by funding the building of mosques with Wahhabi preachers and establishing madrasas that provided free education to the poor.

Thus, to the intense dismay of many in Mohammedist World, an entire generation has grown up with this maverick form of Islam – in Europe and the US, as well as in Pakistan, Jordan and Malaysia.

In 2013, the European Union declared that Wahhabism was the main source of global terrorism. It is probably more accurate, however, to say that the narrowness of the Wahhabi vision is a fertile soil in which extremism can flourish. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Wahhabi chieftains did indeed conduct violent military expeditions against the Shia but, during the 1930s, the Saudi kingdom abandoned military jihad and Wahhabism became a religiously conservative movement.

Today, some members of the Saudi ruling class support Isis but the Grand Mufti has condemned it in the strongest terms. Like Osama Bin Laden, Isis leaders aim to overthrow the Saudi regime and see their movement as a rebellion against modern Wahhabism.

Dreadnaughts No More

Hoist Pendant Equal Speed!

"Orders given, the world's 1st and 2nd largest navies in the world were about to collide - 16 battleships on one side and 28 on the other"

In many ways, the battleship represented the greatest-ever concentration of naval power in a single vessel. Between World War I and World War II, the big, fast, thickly-armored and heavily-armed warships dominated the world’s oceans.

And then, very quickly, the battleship became practically obsolete. Why is a complex question — one that gets all addressed in a new tome -  The Battleship Book..

“The world reached ‘peak battleship’ in 1918when 118 dreadnoughts served in 13 different navies.” Combat claimed eight battlewagons during the Great War. “The Second World War was far more deadly.” Sixty-three battleships were in service in 1939 and another two dozen of the giant warships left the slipways before the conflict’s end. Twenty-three sank in combat.

Battleships excelled at shore-bombardment, anti-aircraft defense and action against other battleships. But not for long. During World War II and beyond, new technology eroded the big ships’ advantages.

“Especially with the shift to the jet age, smaller, less expensive ships could provide the same anti-aircraft defense.” Submarines proved better battleship-killers than other battleships were. Battlewagons were still effective in the shore-bombardment role — indeed, the U.S. Navy’s World War II-vintage Iowas lingered in that niche until the early 1990s — but carrier-launched planes arguably beat out the battleships in that mission, too.

“The battleship era ended not because the ships lacked utility, but rather because they could no longer fulfill their roles in a cost-effective manner.” They were too big, too pricey to build and maintain, and their crews of thousands of sailors were just too large.

“Battleships, in the end, are simply a delivery system for ordnance. “When other platforms became capable of delivering ordnance more efficiently, the battleship began to disappear.”

Today just one battlewagon, remains in frontline use — Russia’s Pyotr Velikiy, a missile-armed nuclear-powered battlecruiser dating to the Cold War.

When she’s gone, the battleship era will truly end.

30 Years War

On September 11th 2001 the world entered a new era of violence. In the end there will be less religion in the world, just like in Europe after 1648, when humanism and the Enlightenment unfurled their victory banners.

Before us lie bleak years.

The jihadis of Al Qaida, Boko Haram, and IS believe wrongly that they are in possession of a comprehensive truth. They enforce, so they claim, the will of Allah and his mission for us. In this truth chaos and decline are part of the equation. “They love life, we love death” writes the perfidious terrorists on their flags. It’s not just Christianity, not just the refrigerator or Coca Cola, they hate everything that does not bend to their wretched views and their apocalyptic furor. The largest victim group is still Muslims, who in the worldview of these radicals are an eye sore.

There is no mistaking: we, in the East as in the West, in land of the rising sun as well that of the setting sun, can only beat these twisted people through force, by the use of soldiers, drones, with the help of secret information gathered by intelligence agencies, and with the knowledge and sad understanding, that their will be many casualties, sadly including civilians. The greatness of our culture would survive, so long as it can retain its form, if it can put the brakes on, not meeting absolute terror with the absolute abandoning of its virtues. This hasn’t been successful in the US, and many countries in the West still struggle with moderating between the pulls of freedom and of security.

But it’s clear: there is an enemy, and this enemy wants to destroy us. “Us” is everyone who orients themselves in their lives with humanistic values. That is the majority, in Paris and Beirut, the latter of which in Europe is called “the Paris of the Near East.” We may have different cultural and religious heritages, but we are all still human.

This original humanity, treat others as you would treat yourself, the meaning of the Golden Rule, which not only can be quoted from the New Testament, but can be found in similar forms in all religious texts across humankind. Any form of categorizing people in order to discriminate against others, is a departure from the universal compassion that we have for one another. Tears cried for loved ones lost in an attack are universally understandable, tearing down our walls of separation. We are all human beings, in Beirut and in Paris.

Islamism is a malformed offspring of globalization: the fear of others who are coming ever closer to us through new means of transportation, the Internet, and real-time communication across the globe. Those who believe that the benefices and clerics hold exclusive knowledge in their hands must see now how their power is dwindling. Therefore violence breaks out everywhere in the world; there are desperate attempts to stop us from coming together. Because certain people have always had much to gain from discrimination.

The new growing humanism we are experiencing at the same time is, however, the most noble of globalization’s children: in seeing and recognizing others who are like me that live only a mouse click away, there is the potential that all the barriers of race, religion, and the rest can be driven from the world forever. Did we really believe that we could achieve this without a struggle? Did we really believe that the old and new representatives of exclusionary ideologies and worldviews would ignore our efforts?

At stake in this Thirty Years War is nothing less than if the modern world can remain a place of freedom, or if this final bemoaning performance of the intolerant will succeed in ending the freedoms of the Modern era, and bomb us back to the near-forgotten darkness of earlier times. In the end there will be, so we want to hope, a large space for empathy and coexistence, which will be determined by tolerance and by a social contract, esti Deus non daretur, as if there weren’t a God.

If we succeed in this, then we succeed in our modernity, by destroying the targets through which the jihadis today pull us into war.