Our Heroes Live In Our Hearts

Whoa! Better late than never, right?

44 awarded the Medal of Honor to two American soldiers, one African-American and one Jewish, whose valor and sacrifice on the French front lines during World War I had not been fully recognized.

Pvt. Henry Johnson on night sentry duty on May 15, 1918, Private Johnson of the Army helped his “Harlem Hellfighters” regiment repel a surprise attack by a dozen German raiders. With only a knife, he single-handedly held off the enemy, preventing the capture of a wounded fellow soldier.

Private Johnson died about a decade later, a victim of 21 combat-related injuries.

Sgt. William Shemin, of the 4th Infantry Division, serving as a rifleman during the Aisne-Marne Offensive, Aug. 7-9, 1918, he left the cover of his platoon's trench and crossed open space, repeatedly exposing himself to heavy machine gun and rifle fire to rescue the wounded.

After officers and senior noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Shemin took command of the platoon until he was wounded by shrapnel and a machine-gun bullet, which pierced his helmet and lodged behind his left ear.

He was hospitalized for three months and then received light duty as part of the Army occupation in Germany and Belgium.

For his injuries, he received the Purple Heart and he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Dec. 29, 1919.

Shemin was honorably discharged in August 1919, and went on to receive a degree from the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University. After graduation, he started a greenhouse and landscaping business in Bronx, New York, where he raised three children.

Team Of Teams

General McChrystal's new book...

What if you could combine the agility, adaptability, and cohesion of a small team with the power and resources of a giant organization?

THE OLD RULES NO LONGER APPLY . . .

When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in 2004, he quickly realized that conventional military tactics were failing. Al Qaeda in Iraq was a decentralized network that could move quickly, strike ruthlessly, then seemingly vanish into the local population. The allied forces had a huge advantage in numbers, equipment, and training—but none of that seemed to matter.

TEACHING A LEVIATHAN TO IMPROVISE

It’s no secret that in any field, small teams have many ad­vantages—they can respond quickly, communicate freely, and make decisions without layers of bureaucracy. But organizations taking on really big challenges can’t fit in a garage. They need management practices that can scale to thousands of people.

General McChrystal led a hierarchical, highly disci­plined machine of thousands of men and women. But to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, his Task Force would have to acquire the enemy’s speed and flexibility. Was there a way to combine the power of the world’s mightiest military with the agility of the world’s most fearsome terrorist network? If so, could the same principles apply in civilian organizations?

A NEW APPROACH FOR A NEW WORLD

McChrystal and his colleagues discarded a century of conventional wisdom and remade the Task Force, in the midst of a grueling war, into something new: a network that combined extremely transparent communication with decentralized decision-making authority. The walls between silos were torn down. Leaders looked at the best practices of the smallest units and found ways to ex­tend them to thousands of people on three continents, using technology to establish a oneness that would have been impossible even a decade earlier. The Task Force became a “team of teams”—faster, flatter, more flex­ible—and beat back Al Qaeda.

BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD

In this powerful book, McChrystal and his colleagues show how the challenges they faced in Iraq can be rel­evant to countless businesses, nonprofits, and other or­ganizations. The world is changing faster than ever, and the smartest response for those in charge is to give small groups the freedom to experiment while driving every­one to share what they learn across the entire organiza­tion. As the authors argue through compelling examples, the team of teams strategy has worked everywhere from hospital emergency rooms to NASA. It has the potential to transform organizations large and small.

Jütland

Way back in the last millennium (a hundred years ago!) the big arms race of the day was ...battleships. Dreadnaughts were the very fitting nom'd'guerre. "Don't you worry about the British Navy or the British Empire THEY ARE SYNONYMOUS TERMS!" was Admiral and 1st Sea Lord, Baron Sir Jacky Fisher's way to LOL that Britannia ruled the waves.

 Using the 2 navy standard, Royal Navy was to be more bigger and more better than the next 2 biggest navies - combined!

Great Britain's life depended on sea power and the sweet consort of force projection courtesy of Royal Navy. An often undervalued spark of WWI was Imperial Deutschland's growing High Seas Fleet. Like it or don"t, every rivet driven by Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (later named sake"d as a Nazi time Battleship) crafting the world class Kriegsmarine, freaked out Royal Navy and the synonymous British Empire as well.

Armoured Cruisers developed in the late 1800's were long-range war vessels, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship, and fast enough to outrun any battleships she may encounter.  

The counter to such a threat was the Battle Cruiser.  Jacky Fisher's "Greyhounds of the sea" were the perfect complement to a squadron of battleships - similar in size and cost to a battleship, she often toted the same kinda of heavy guns, yet deployed far less armour and were like really way faster than anything afloat.

Both Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine stationed their battle cruisers and dreadnaught battleships in separate task forces - when combined - such surface forces were bloody formidable luv!

As the 1st World War ground on - Royal Navy's blockade of Deutschland was beginning to pay off - loss of prestige on the home front, morale dropping, shortages on everything from sausage to shoes and a suck economy made naval strategy like Admiral Mahan's threat of "a fleet in being" less of a comfort to Germany as unleashing her High Seas Fleet to systematically do some blockade busting.

While Royal Navy's Home Fleet out numbered Deutschland"s  - Imperial  Navy Deutschers conceived a pretty smart plan to even out the odds for a final lo down ho down: sortee several battle cruisers to shell Britain's east coast. When Royal Navy's Battle Cruiser squadron (led by the dashing impetuous Admiral David Beatty) responded by flying down the coast and intercept for righteous payback, it would be a sucker trap, for Germany would have her entire High Seas Fleet on location to annihilate them. Evening up the odds for the next encounter when Great Britain's slower Dreadnaughts hit the scene.

Deutschland kicked off her audacious plan on May 31st and 1 June 1916

The bait worked. While Royal Navy spy guys learned that Kreigsmarine's Battle Cruiser flotilla  led by Admiral Franz von Hipper were sweetly trekking up to repeat the raids on Scarborough and Hartlepool - they were unaware the High Seas Fleet had also sortee'd. 

Sure enough, Royal Navy"s Battle Cruiser Squad charged smack dab into Germany's - who were leading them south into the jaws of an awful trap. 

 Jütland.

Between 18:30, when the sun was lowering on the western horizon, backlighting the German forces, and nightfall at about 20:30, the two fleets – totalling 250 ships between them – directly engaged twice.

Inexplicably, Admiral Beatty insisted on using signal flags instead of new fangled wireless to transmit orders and the Royal Navy got a spanking.

HMS Tiger and Queen Mary missed import orders, leaving SMS Derrflinger (a crack gunnery ship) sweetly sailing about unopposed, shooting up Beatty's flagship HMS Lion. Only by flooding her magazine with his dying breath, Royal Marine Major Harvey (Victoria Cross) saved Lion from instant vaporization that befell her sisters

Disaster rolled over the Battle Cruisers at Jütland as SMS Von der Tann blasted thru HMS Indefatigable"s lightly armoured deck to ignite her powder magazines. In an instant - she was gone with all hands.  SMS Seydlitz and Derrflinger double teamed Queen Mary annihilating her as she exploded instantly.

Admiral Beatty made his infamous remark to his 2nd in Command that "Something seems to be wrong with our bloody ships today" as it was feared HMS Princess Royal may have suffered the same fate

As Germany's High Seas Fleet Dreadnaughts appeared on the scene to complete the massacre, Admiral Beatty was running away at top speed to meet his big brother Dreadnaughts slowly yet steadily advancing south. It was a tough time - HMS Defense was gone, HMS Black Prince sunk, HMS Invincible was horrifically dying and HMS Warrior was in real trouble as Germans and Britons were shooting each other to pieces 

As the Royal Navy Dreadnaughts led by Admiral John Jellicoe finally met up with her beleaguered Battle Cruisers - all 27 of them in the last line head battle formation in the history of the Royal Navy. They let loose with a ring of fire and steel.

Kriegsmarine Admiral Reinhard Scheer commanding Germany's Dreadnaughts might have charged in to meet them - closing the distance, trusting in his better armour and faster gunnery to make up for numerical superiority - after all this was the decisive moment Deutschland had been building, training and dreaming of for decades.

 Rodolent with Royal Navy's honored past, named after Admirals, Generals, Greek gods and Roman virtues - Scheer must have felt he was confronting not  only Jellicoe and Beatty but the ghosts of Rodney, Howe, Nelson and Drake.

The Germans split the AO with Royal Navy in hot pursuit into the night. Aside from torpedo attacks by both sides the Battle of Jütland more like faded out than ended.

14 British and 11 German ships were sunk, with great loss of life. After sunset, and throughout the night, Jellicoe maneuvered to cut the Germans off from their base, in hopes of continuing the battle next morning, but under the cover of darkness Scheer broke through the British light forces forming the rearguard of the Grand Fleet and returned to port.

Materially speaking - Germany won Jütland. Kriegsmarine lost only 1 Battle Cruiser - SMS Lutzow (tho Seydlitz was so shot up she beached herself returning home), the ancient pre Dreadnaught SMS Pommern sunk plus 4 light cruisers, 5 destroyers - 2,500 men lost.

Royal Navy by contrast lost 3 modern Battle Cruisers, 4 Armoured Cruisers,, 8 destroyers and more than 6,000 men perished - mostly on Invincible, Indefatigable and Queen Mary. Royal Navy's vaunted ships proved vulnerable, inaccurate shooting, their shells defective, their method of communication woefully antique and their admirals cautious and bemused.

The British public learned of the 'disaster at Jütland" before all of Royal Navy had returned to port as Germany LOL'd she had smashed the Magic of Trafalger, gleefully listing the names of revered British ship that were incinerated. The 2nd Battle of Jütland lasted years as Royal Navy admirals and minions blasted each other in the press, publishing, inquiries and boards for eons afterwords.

In moral terms - Great Britain won. Despite mistakes and shortcomings, her image of invincibility remained intact and Royal Navy beat the hand of her most ablest opponent in over a century. The blockade remained, and Imperial Deutschland never again sortee'd with all her might 

Royal Navy never totally got the pic about Battle Cruisers tho - 28 years later HMS Hood - one of the last of the Battle Cruisers lost out in a head to head match with the super Dreadnaught Bismarck

 

Pic - "Brassey's Naval Annual, for instance, stated that with vessels as large and expensive as the Invincibles, an admiral "will be certain to put them in the line of battle where their comparatively light protection will be a disadvantage and their high speed of no value."

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 4 votes!–Joshuapundit–Ramadi Falls To ISIS In A Major Victory – And Why It’s Important
• Second place with 1 1/3 votes – The Glittering Eye –They Wrote What They Saw, Memorial Day, 2015
• Third place *t* with 1 vote –The Noisy Room – Di Blasio’s “Contract For Communism”
• Third place *t* with 1 vote –Nice Deb – Ralph Peters: Release of Bin Laden Docs Timed To Divert Attention From Ramadi Embarrassment
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Ask Marion – EPA Supports Monsanto Roundup
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Bookworm Room – Feminist claims that bad consensual sex equals rape victimize women just as surely as the McMartin trials victimized children
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Don Surber – Stephanopoulos made the Clinton Foundation dirty
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Independent Sentinel – Words Matter: Michelle Obama Refers to the US as a Constitutional Democracy at Oberlin
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Razor – Islamic State a Leftist Nightmare
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Right Planet – How Democrats ‘Celebrate’ Memorial Day
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –VA Right! – Bill Janis Unleashes the Flying Monkeys!
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Rhymes With Right – Be Kind To Wheelchairs

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 2/3 votes! –Sultan Knish – De-Islamization Is The Only Way To Fight ISIS submitted by Joshuapundit
• Second place with 2 votes – Mark Steyn –Nothing Another 42,000 Airstrikes Can’t Fix submitted by The Noisy Room
• Third place with 1 2/3 votes –Victor Davis Hanson –Disasters At Home And Abroad submitted by Nice Deb
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote –The People’s Cube – Stages of the Progressive Agenda submitted by The Right Planet
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – Robert Tracinski/The Federalist – Why Does the Left Kowtow to Islam? submitted by The Watcher
• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote – NewsBusters – Bob Woodward: Wrong, Bush Did Not Lie Us Into Iraq submitted by The Watcher
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Walter Russell Mead/Via Meadia –Obama, Anti-Semitism and Iran submitted by The Razor and The Glittering Eye
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Quin Hillyer/NRO–At Sea in an Alien Culture, Where ‘Normal’ Is Defined as ‘Deviant’ submitted by Bookworm Room
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Daily Beast – With Help From ISIS, a More Deadly Boko Haram Makes a Comeback submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –TeaParty.Org – Pamela Geller Plans Muhammad Cartoon Bus Ads for Washington D.C. submitted by VA Right!

See you next week!

Future Middle East

Aha - don't need any Ouija Boards to predestine how Future Middle East is gon look!

Today's Middle East is arguably more volatile and more dangerous than it has been for centuries. The rise of Islamic State and the prospect of a nuclear Iran each represent an unprecedented threat to global security. All the while the West appears increasingly at a loss as to what to do about any of this. Britain and America's influence in the region has weakened, and this newly emerging reality looks set to create some strange and previously inconceivable alliances.

Reports have been emerging from Middle Eastern news agencies of a secret meeting recently held in Jordan. What was particularly intriguing about this previously unpublicized gathering was that it reportedly brought together Israeli diplomats with those from Arab countries that officially have no dealings with the Jewish State; we can assume that figures from the Gulf countries were among those in attendance.

All the more interesting, it is being widely reported that the meeting was essentially convened to plan for a Middle East from which America has more or less retreated. Other reports claim that some of the Sunni states expressed openness to entering into security cooperation with Israel. If true, this indicates just how concerned the Sunni states are about the rise of a nuclear Iran, and just how little faith they have in 44's strategy for negotiating Iran's nuclear program away.

Of course, we don't know that the approach adopted by 44 will outlive his presidency. But the worries of many of America's traditional allies in the region are clear. If America does continue to retreat from the Middle East, the vacuum left behind will quickly be filled by others. That could lead to an entire region that looks much as Iraq does today. Since Obama pulled U.S. forces out of Iraq at the end of 2011, the country has been lost to a tug-of-war between the Iranian-backed, Shiite-led government in Baghdad, and the Sunni Islamists militants who are now largely expressed through the Islamic State.

No one would deny that Iraq went through some dark days during the era of 43. But following the surge strategy launched in 2008, order was being restored, and it looked like there might be good reason for optimism. Now, as 44's administration increasingly disengages from the Middle East, the region is slipping into turmoil, hurtling from one crisis to the next. Desperate times indeed call for desperate measures, and if the Gulf states are now reaching out to Israel, we know just how desperate things have become.

The policies pursued by 44 in the Middle East have either simply failed, or worse, they have completely backfired. Take the airstrikes against ISIS that we were told would turn back the advancing jihadist tide. The recent fall of Ramadi makes clear that this approach isn't working. And then there is the administration's strategy on Iran, which was supposed to restrain Iranian ambitions and prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. But the negotiations now look well on their way to achieving the opposite.

At the very time that Washington is pushing for reconciliation, the Iranians have been showing signs of becoming more belligerent, not less. By harassing international shipping along the Strait of Hormuz, as they have been in recent weeks, the Iranians are sending a pretty clear message - just in case the message of "Death to America" that continues to echo out across the public squares of Tehran wasn't clear enough.

Worse, it is not only the Iranians that have read the West's negotiation stance as a sign of weakness. No longer believing that 44's administration will stop Iran, the Saudis are now threatening to develop their own nuclear capabilities and match those of Iran. The very negotiations that are meant to be preventing nuclear proliferation in the region may now be about to trigger a nuclear arms race in one of the most unstable parts of the world.

As the Gulf countries have dramatically increased their spending on military hardware, it is also worth remembering that back in 2010 it emerged from WikiLeaks that the Saudis were preparing to allow Israel to use their airspace for a strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure. It's always been fashionable to complain about American heavyhandedness in the Middle East.

Under 44 we are beginning to see what the alternative might look like.

China Strategy Paper 2015

After State Ran Media warned war with Great Satan was inevitable, the World's largest Collectivist State just put out her Strategic White Paper featuring China's  “active defense” military strategy

People’s Liberation Army Navy will expand its defense perimeter to include “open seas protection.” The air force will also expand its focus to include offensive as well as defensive military capabilities. “We will not attack unless we are attacked, but we will surely counterattack if attacked”

Accordingly, the paper said the navy of the People's Liberation Army will "gradually shift its focus from 'offshore waters defense' to a combination of 'offshore waters defense' and 'open seas protection'".

And

Regarding outer space, the paper reaffirmed China's opposition to the weaponization of outer space and its disapproval of an arms race in outer space.

As for cyber space, it said "China will expedite the development of a cyber force" and enhance its capabilities in cyber situation awareness and cyber defense.

The paper also noted that as Chinese national interests stretch further abroad, it will "strengthen international security cooperation in areas crucially related to China's overseas interests".

It said the PLA will engage in extensive regional and international security affairs, and promote the establishment of the mechanisms of emergency notification, military risk precaution, crisis management and conflict control.

The paper highlighted future cooperation with Russian armed forces, saying the PLA will foster a comprehensive, diverse and sustainable framework to promote military relations.

On cooperation with the US, China intends to build a "new model of military relationships" that conforms to the two nations' new model of major-country relations.

It will strengthen defense dialogues, exchanges and cooperation with the US military, and improve the mechanism for the notification of major military activities as well as the rule of behavior for safety of air and maritime encounters.

ISIS' Combat Bona Fides

The recent fall of Ramadi show ISIS had gained some hard won combat expertise...

Islamic State’s battlefield performance suggests the terrorist group’s tactical sophistication is growing—a development the Iraqis and the U.S.-led coalition have so far failed to counter

Islamic State commanders executed a complex battle plan that outwitted a greater force of Iraqi troops as well as the much-lauded, U.S.-trained special-operations force known as the Golden Division, which had been fighting for months to defend the city.

Islamic State commanders evaded surveillance and airstrikes to bring reinforcements to its front lines in western Iraq. The group displayed a high degree of operational security by silencing its social media and propaganda teams during the Ramadi surge.

The group also churned out dozens of formidable new weapons by converting captured U.S. military armored vehicles designed to be impervious to small-arms fire into megabombs with payloads equal to the force of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Over the three-day surge in Ramadi, Islamic State fighters launched at least 27 such vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, or Vbieds, that destroyed Iraq security forces’ defensive perimeters and crumbled multistory buildings.

Military analysts said the new formidable weapon was the latest development showing how the group appears to be learning from battlefield defeats like the one in Kobani, Syria, last summer in pursuit of its goal to control the Sunni-majority areas of Syria and Iraq.

After the mid-April victories in the Albu Faraj and Sijariyah neighborhoods, an Islamic State commander told Islamic State’s radio station, Al Bayan, on April 27 that the group was ready to embark on its ultimate goal of winning control of Ramadi’s city center

On the same day, Islamic State distributed a military order hundreds of miles to the north in Aleppo, Syria, calling for a redeployment of the group’s most devout fighters to the front lines in Anbar and Salahuddin provinces in Iraq. Written in the name of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the order called for expert and religiously dedicated fighters for a one-time assignment, implying they would be used in suicide missions

By the end of April, officials in Anbar were reporting a surge of cars passing into Iraq from the Al Qaim border crossing—which Islamic State controls—near Syria. Officials in Ramadi said Islamic State fighters started arriving in groups of two or three in nondescript sedans, instead of the Toyota pickup trucks group members used to favor, in apparent efforts to blend in with civilian traffic and stay off radar of U.S. surveillance planes.

From early May, the group enforced a blackout of its own media posts from Ramadi. That was in contrast to other battlefields in the country, such as Beiji and Fallujah, where Islamic State supporters continued to post propaganda about battles

On May 5, Islamic State launched an attack on Ramadi’s city center, but Iraqi helicopters and the Golden Division repulsed the advance, Iraqi state media reported. Running battles along the bridges across the Euphrates River separating Ramadi’s southwestern Islamic State-held neighborhoods from the city center continued for days, with Iraqi forces holding their lines.

By May 13, Islamic State had established a team of snipers closer to where Iraqi police and army units were based, said Iraqi soldiers and state media.

The next day, Islamic State launched its surge by sending a single armored bulldozer to the concrete barriers on the outskirts of the government lines. The bulldozer worked unimpeded for close to an hour, removing concrete walls. Once the road was cleared, Islamic State fighters drove about six Vbieds, including an armored Humvee and armored dump truck, into the government complex.

Over the next 72 hours, the terrorist group set off at least another 20 Vbied and suicide bombs, U.S. officials said.

Islamic State took the government complex by May 15. The group launched another wave of vehicle suicide attacks on May 17, preventing Iraqi reinforcements from entering the city. The Golden Division, which had been cut off from the rest of the Iraqi forces, called for a retreat from town.

Once Islamic State’s black flag began flying from Ramadi’s city center, the group lifted its information blackout. It posted photos and eulogies for six suicide bombers it said were responsible for the initial wave of attacks.