Military Affairs

Heckling the Families of Dead Soldiers, for Extra Credit

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Orson Scott Card writes about a truly disgusting and infuriating phenomenon.

the airplane I was flying in held, in its cargo space, the body of a young man who had died in the service of America — in my service. His family was waiting to meet the airplane and say good-bye to their beloved son and brother. … The family was actually from another city, one with a much larger airport than this one. But they had opted to drive the extra miles to receive the coffin here … so they could avoid the demonstrators who had lately been showing up. … “Hippie college students,” … “They egged the hearse.” On that occasion, the brother of the dead soldier was so hurt and angry at these strangers who dared to defile his brother’s memory and worsen his family’s suffering that “he clocked one of them.” So the brother was arrested for assault and could not be with his family for the rest of the services in honor of one of America’s fallen. The demonstrators suffered no penalty. In fact, they received extra credit from a college professor because they had “taken part in a demonstration.”

Does anyone know if this is true? Does anyone know the name and place of employment of the “college professor” in question? Has anyone protested this conduct?

Please put any reliable information you may have about this in the comments.

UPDATE: I have seen nothing else about this. Nor apparently has anyone else. I am starting to think it is an urban legend, despite having some surface plausibility. If it were true the blogosphere would be all over it. Still, I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has facts affirming this tale.

Reports from our Blog Roll – In From the Cold

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In from the Cold reports the resignation of Abizaid. Spook 86 observes:

The choice for Abizaid’s replacement will be an early indicator of how much clout Mr. Gates (and the Bush #41 alumni association) really have in setting policy for the rest of W’s administration.

This news is preceded and followed by speculations on Iran & Gunboat Diplomacy, but his greater energy was spent analyzing the possibilities of recruitment in “It’s the Force Structure, Stupid.”

Total Planetary Domination (A Continuing Series)

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Thanks to Glenn for pointing to Hypersonic Cruise Missile: America’s New Global Strike Weapon, in which we read that “[i]n 2001, Defense Department planners began searching for something that could hit a foe almost instantly without risking a nuclear holocaust.”

Exactly.

Add conventional SLBMs and X-51s to our arsenal. Heh.

Books That Should Exist, But Don’t: The South African Military

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Millions and millions of books. Even in the history field, thousands and thousands. Usually monographs on pretty narrow topics. But amidst all that, despite the numbers, you sometimes find that a book you want just does not exist.

I got thinking about South Africa recently, due to a perusal of Ralph Peters’ remarkable essay The Lion and the Snake, hat tip Eddie. And it occurred to me that I knew less about the South African military than I’d like. It is a remote corner of the Anglosphere which I’d like to know more about, and being me, I wanted to start from the military angle. I went looking for something like Granatstein’s history of the Canadian Army, or this essay collection on the military history of Ireland. I found remarkably little. There are unit histories, and an official (or semi-official) history of South Africa in the Second World War, and some books about the South African Army from the 1980s, and a few other odds and ends, such as this short essay, and this interesting list of books (click on “literature”). So there is a fair amount of material out there, but nothing comprehensive. I want someone else to do the research, the heavy lifting, and put the whole thing together for me, with an nice annotated bibliography.

Despite substantial searching, I am forced to conclude with regret that there is no one volume history of the South African armed forces, or military history of South Africa. I think we are too close to the transition from the apartheid regime to the successor regime. Old wounds are still open.

Still, too bad. It would be a very fascinating story, told as a continuous narrative. Lots of military, political, cultural and racial drama. The Dutch settlement, the British capture of the Cape, the Zulu Wars, the Boer War, South African expeditionary forces in both world wars, the Cold War era struggles against guerillas in adjacent countries, The military’s involvement in sustaining the apartheid regime, the clandestine nuclear program, the current ambiguous situation, including the virtual privatization of important segments of the South African Army into mercenary bands for hire, and some predictions and guesses about what the future might hold. What a tale. Even if it covered only the 20th century, starting with independence, after the Boer War, it is a story which would certainly have a lot of interest and lessons. It belongs in one volume. I hope someone writes it.

I close by opening the floor to our readers: Do you have any book recommendations about South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, etc., not necessarily limited to the military angle.

Outsourcing the Dirty Work

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According to a Reuters news article, Canada is petitioning NATO to send more military assets to Afghanistan.

Every government in the world has their own concerns and agenda, although the interests of two countries might well align in some cases.

NATO is subject to restrictions that member nations have on how many troops they will donate, and the governments who contribute the troops often place restrictions on how they will be used.

That is why I find it bizarre to see any country place any sort of trust in an international coalition when it comes to defense issues. All of the elements necessary for decisive military action (flexibility, a clear goal, decisiveness) are lost.

If Canada is frustrated, why don’t they just go ahead and take care of the problem themselves?

Oh, yeah. I forgot.