Month: June 2010

Deepwater Horizon – Random Thoughs with a dash of Hypocrisy

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Back on May 4 I posted some random thoughts about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Surprisingly, all of them still hold true.

-The human cost still has taken a major back seat to the environmental cost
-Almost zero people reporting on the story knows anything about how a deepwater drilling rig works. I was taught that the word “busted” was not to be used when I was growing up, but I am reading a lot of stories that say things like “busted pipe”. That is a grammatical digression, I admit.
-I still think BP is trying everything they can muster to stop the leak(s)
-The market still seems to be doing a big shoulder shrug over the whole thing. The collapse of the eurozone and the poor jobs reports seem to weigh much heavier on the markets. And oil prices are going down.
-I did say that the federal response was quick (for them) but really can’t tell at this point if it is. A lot of people are slagging the Obama administration for acting slowly, but I don’t live there so maybe one of our commenters could clear that up.

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Battle of Okinawa 65 Years Later — 04 June 1945

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04 June 1945

On Okinawa, two regiments of US 6th Marine Division make landings on the Oroku peninsula in an attempt to outflank Japanese defensive positions.

The landing of the 6th Mar Div and Elmination of the IJN Base Force

The battle line on Oroku Peninsula, 4-13 June 1945

However, this is the base area of the Japanese Navy on Okinawa. The local IJN commander, after at first obeying orders to retreat to the Kiyan line, dislikes his new position. He disobeys orders and has his troops reoccupy their original cave positions at Oroku.

The 32nd Army papers over the mutiny by sending orders after wards approving this action.

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Where the Carpet Ends

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The worldwide attacks on Israel, in the wake of the Gaza event, are frightening in their venom and irrationality, and I fear that these responses mark a significant turning toward the abandonment of civilization’s ramparts and the appeasement of terrorist and rogue-state barbarism. Daniel Henninger of the WSJ has a roundup here. He notes that:

For starters, denouncing Israel for something like this is convenient for leaders who have failed repeatedly to do anything about more important and difficult problems such as Iran, North Korea or sovereign debt. Also, lesser nations learn by example: The Obama administration’s unrestrained criticism of the Israeli government in March over East Jerusalem settlements lowered the threshold for teeing off on Israel.

…and expresses particular concern about the comments made by Catherine Ashton, EU “high representative for foreign affairs,” who demanded “an immediate, sustained, and unconditional opening” of the Gaza blockade. Henninger notes that:

Until High Representative Ashton’s demand to end the blockade, the EU had been party to a clear, explicit policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. Since 2002, a group known as the Quartet—consisting of the EU, Russia, the U.S. and the U.N., with Tony Blair as its current special envoy—has said that no one could deal with Hamas, the occupier of Gaza, until Hamas fulfilled three conditions: Recognize Israel’s right to exist. Renounce violence. Accept agreements already made by previous Palestinian negotiators.

Hamas hasn’t met any of those conditions. After Ms. Ashton’s outburst, it knows it doesn’t have to.

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Battle of Okinawa 65 Years Later — 02 thru 03 June 1945

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02 June 1945

On Okinawa, mopping up continues as the US 6th Marine Division prepares to land two regiments on the Oroku peninsula.

The US Army 77th Division and it’s supporting 706th tank battalion are pulled out of the line.

The remainder of the Okinawa campaign will be fought by the 24th Corps 7th and 96th Divisions and the 3rd Amphibious Corps 1st and 6th Marine Divisions.

03 June 1945

On Okinawa, Japanese forces are isolated in the Oroku and Chinen peninsula.

The 7th Division cuts across the base of the Chinen peninsula to the south east coast. It finds the peninsula almost devoid of Japanese troops.

The Ninth Japanese “Floating Chrysanthemum” aerial suicide attack on American navy radar pickets begins.

Okinawa Background — The Engineer Special Brigade

Long time military wargamers — grognards — have long noted that the American military, and the US Army in particular, has always been very good at logistics. In the Cold War this was expressed as “Americans always love a technological solution.” Before the advent of highly technological military aviation, this was better expressed as “Americans always love a material and organizational solutions.”

In World War 2, this habit of institutional excellence was best expressed in the form of the US Army Engineer Special Brigade.

One of the little know facts of WW2 — thanks to post WW2 USMC PR campaigns — was that the US Army did more amphibious landings, did larger amphibious landings (See Normandy), faced tougher on-shore opposition (See German tank division counter attacks on beach heads at Sicily, Salerno and Anzio) and faced worse aerial opposition (Luftwaffe guided bombs in 1943 and the Japanese Kamikazes appeared first, with better pilots, lasting longer in worse geographic conditions in the Philippines at Leyte and Lingayen) than the US Marine Corps. More over, the US Army was better than the Marines when it came to providing supplies across the beach!

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Memory Hole

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As an exercise in self-congratulation, the mainstream media has established a museum in Washington DC. There is a web portal for it, and you can input queries about the glories of American journalism. Sometimes, though, things disappear.

Newseum