Via Michelle Malkin this morning, a call to support milblogger Reid Stanley of A Storm in Afghanistan.

Reid's wife Ellicia has been diagnosed with cancer in her breasts, lungs and brain. The prognosis is terminal, and hospice care is not covered under his military benefits.

I humbly ask my readers for two things:

First and foremost, if you are able, please contribute financially to help his family through this traumatic time if you are able, and keep them in your prayers.

Second, please contact your Congressmen and Senators to ask that hospice care for the immedate family members of servicemen be added to the benefits package of those serving this nation. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines risk their lives to protect us. It seems only right that we provide for them and their families when they need it most.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Okay, I'll confess my ignorance and ask the question:

Has anyone else ever seen an African-Palestinian terrorist before?

There is the possibility that the gunman pictured is just a very dark-skinned Arab, or that the color balance was incorrect in this photo. Indeed, another photo of what appears to be the same individual at the same location does apparently show somewhat lighter skin. But with the population of Gaza being 99.4% Arab Palestinian and the remaining 0.6% being Jewish, the question is obvious:

Who is that masked man?

Do we now have photo evidence that Palestianians are importing terrorists from North African terrorist groups? And would that perhaps explain why the Associated Press photographer who shot this photo was kidnapped just hours after this picture was published?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:49 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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This child was weak—perhaps injured or dying—as this photo was taken in the Darfur region of Sudan in 2004. He may already be dead. One thing is certain; the future of millions of children throughout the Middle East just like him will be affected by you very soon.

As you read this, Darfar is a largely abandoned genocide. Supported by the Sudanese government, Arab janjaweed militias are exterminating Africans of the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups. Estimates of the number of dead vary, and millions are thought to be displaced. We know that children and babies are among the targets of the janjaweed attacks, and that dismemberment is a not uncommon tactic. We also know that the violence in Darfur is projected to worsen throughout the rest of the year.

If current U.S. political trends hold, Iraq may become another Darfur, and Darfur well may be on its way to becoming another Rwanda.

As Victor David Hansen notes of unexpected outcomes today:

Where does all this lead? Not where most expect. The Left thinks that the “fiasco” in Iraq will bring a repudiation of George Bush, and lead to its return to power. Perhaps. But more likely it will bring a return of realpolitik to American foreign policy, in which no action abroad is allowable (so much for the liberals’ project of saving Darfur), and our diplomacy is predicated only on stability abroad. The idealism of trying to birth consensual government will be discredited; but with its demise also ends any attention to Arab moderates, who whined for years about our support for the House of Saud, Pakistani generals, Gulf autocrats, or our neglect of the mayhem wrought by Islamists in Afghanistan. We know now that when the United States tries to spend blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq that it will be slandered as naïve or imperialistic.

Every major Democratic candidate in this fall’s congressional race—save one principled independent Democrat in Connecticut—is pushing for the United States to withdraw from Iraq. Some moderate Republicans are taking this tack as well. They claim that they want U.S. forces out of Iraq because our continued presence there only invites attacks against American soldiers, saps the national treasury, weakens our ability to respond to other threats such as Iran and North Korea, and weakens our image in the international community.

All of these points have some merit.

U.S. soldiers would be far safer if redeployed to Okinawa. There are no insurgents, no sectarian militias, and no roving bands of al Qaeda terrorists there.

The War in Iraq is indeed expensive, costing over 336 billion dollars and growing according to one anti-war web site.

Having such a large commitment of soldiers currently in, returning from, or preparing to go to Iraq certainly absorbs a significant portion of our current military strength, though it barely occupies our force projection from the Navy and Air Force to any extent.

And let us not forget that our international image is indeed tarnished, particularly among those nations of the world community run by strongmen, despots, and dictators that would see a weaker and more isolationist United States as a benefit for their own foreign policy desires.

But what no candidate in favor of withdrawal wants to address is what will happen to the Iraqi people if anti-war candidates do take control of Congress and attempt to live up to their campaign promises.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and other leading Democrats have already made their intentions abundantly clear:

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee if Democrats win control of the House next year, but his main goal in 2007 does not fall within his panelÂ’s jurisdiction.
"I canÂ’t stop this war, " a frustrated Rangel said in a recent interview, reiterating his vow to retire from Congress if Democrats fall short of a majority in the House.

But when pressed on how he could stop the war even if Democrats control the House during the last years of President BushÂ’s second term, Rangel paused before saying, "YouÂ’ve got to be able to pay for the war, donÂ’t you?"

Rangel’s views on funding the war are shared by many of his colleagues – especially within the 73-member Out of Iraq Caucus.

Some Democratic legislators want to halt funding for the war immediately, while others say they would allocate money for activities such as reconstruction, setting up international security forces, and the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"Personally, I wouldnÂ’t spend another dime [on the war,] " said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).
Woolsey is among the Democrats in Congress who are hoping to control the power of the purse in 2007 to force an end to the war. Woolsey and some of her colleagues note that Congress helped force the end of Vietnam War by refusing to pay for it.

If Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, they will cut funding to the war effort. What they will not publicly admit is that the nearly immediate precipitous withdrawal that that would force will almost certainly destroy any hopes of Iraq being able to develop a representative form of government.

An impending, unimpeded civil war dwarfing the current level of sectarian violence will quite probably lead to genocide in Iraq, and yet, politicians in the House would not likely respond by reinserting U.S forces to help halt the violence. To do so would be to admit that they were wrong to force such an abrupt withdrawal.

Photo of an Iraqi family near the Iranian border courtesy of Michael Yon.

The price of such short-sighted political miscalculations will be paid for with the blood of Iraqi, men, women, and children. They do not want an even wider civil war, but lack any authority or capability to stop it on their own. No one can predict just how bad the violence would become, but anyone addressing the situation honestly must acknowledge that the number of those killed, injured and displaced will be far greater than the already unacceptable casualties thus far.

The Democratic PartyÂ’s intention is not genocide in Iraq, but if they come to power in Congress, that is almost assuredly what they will cause. Their much-discussed and on-going drive for isolationism is precursor to mass murder.

And yet, Iraqi civilians will not be the only victims of a Democratic Congress. A Democratic House that refuses to allow American forces the opportunity to attempt to stabilize a situation we created will have no political capital to intwt in interceding in other conflicts where we have even less direct interests.

As Hanson notes in his article linked above, no action abroad will be permissible if we withdraw from Iraq. There can be no intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur. There can be no intervention in any other "hot spots" that may develop around the world ,because a Democratic Congress that abandoned Iraq will have committed itself to a policy of non-intervention worldwide.

It is well within the realm of possibility that American voters will determine with their votes on November 7 whether or not we will see this mistake of inaction repeated in other nations in the Middle East and Africa in coming years.

The cost in blood and treasure of the current "Republican" war may yet pale in comparison to the human suffering imposed by a pending Democratic "peace."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:44 AM | Comments (34) | Add Comment
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Breaking on al-Reuters:

A U.S. soldier was reported missing in Baghdad on Monday, the military said.

The soldier, part of a multi-national division in the Iraqi capital, went missing at about 7:30 p.m. local time, the U.S. military said in a statement.

"Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces immediately responded to attempt to locate the soldier, the search is ongoing," the statement said.

The limited information coming out thus far does not indicate the circumstances under which the soldier went missing. In June, two soldiers were captured, tortured and eventually beheaded after a larger force was drawn away and their isolated position was overrun.

It has not been confirmed that this soldier was indeed captured, but that is of course the fear.

More as this develops.

Update: Fox News television mentioned the story briefly. The soldier, a translator, was kidnapped. The kidnapping was reported by an Iraqi civilian who witnessed it..

As expected, the bottomfeeders at the Democratic Underground are already insisting that any impending torture is, of course, President Bush's fault for signing the Military Commissions Act nine days ago.

Never miss a chance, kids, no matter how petty.

Update: This may be something:

An employee at Baghdad's al-Furat TV, which was raided by American forces earlier Monday, said the U.S. forces conducting the search told him they were looking for an abducted American officer of Iraqi descent.

The employee said U.S. soldiers and Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the government's national security adviser who went to the station during the raid, told him the missing officer had left to join family members in Baghdad's Karadah district.

The officer's wife, also an Iraqi-American, was reportedly in the capital visiting family, according to the reports passed on by the al-Furat employee.

Having relatives in the combat zone means that this particular soldier had a great degree of potential exposure. I hope that whoever kidnapped the missing soldier did not use his family members or his spouse as bait leading to his capture.

Update: Snatched on the way to his family? that is what I take away from this line:

American troops who raided Baghdad's al-Furat TV on Monday said they were looking for an abducted American officer of Iraqi descent who had gone to join family members in Karradah.

This is starting to sound like this specific officer may have been targeted, bring about the possibility that whoever took him is looking for intelligence, not just a random soldier to torture for propaganda purposes ahead of the election.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:34 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The M16/M4 family assault rifles have served the U.S. military for longer than I've been alive, and during that 39-year run, it has always been fielded with a 5.56mm NATO catridge. The success of the.22-caliber centerfire round relies almost totally upon velocity, and the short-barreled M4 carbine issued to many of our troops today means that they are equipped with a weapon and cartridge combination that places their lives at risk.

Nowhere in recent memory was anecdotal evidence more apparent than in Michael Yon's widely read dispatch, Gates of Fire, where CSM Robert Prosser engaged a terrorist in Mosul at point-blank range after LTC Eric Kurilla was shot in a storefront ambush:

Prosser ran around the corner, passed the two young soldiers who were crouched low, then by me and right to the shop, where he started firing at men inside.

A man came forward, trying to shoot Kurilla with a pistol, apparently realizing his only escape was by fighting his way out, or dying in the process. Kurilla was aiming at the doorway waiting for him to come out. Had Prosser not come at that precise moment, who knows what the outcome might have been.

Prosser shot the man at least four times with his M4 rifle. But the American M4 rifles are weak - after Prosser landed three nearly point blank shots in the manÂ’s abdomen, splattering a testicle with a fourth, the man just staggered back, regrouped and tried to shoot Prosser.

ProsserÂ’s M4 carbine failed to seriously incapacitate the terrorist even after he was shot with four 5.56 NATO rounds at almost contact range. Prosser ended up capturing the terrorist after intense hand-to-hand combat. The terrorist survived his wounds.

This incident, written about fourteen months ago, immediately came to mind when I spoke last week with another soldier that had been based in Mosul and Ramadi during his latest tour. The last insurgent he shot took two 5.56 NATO rounds from an M4 in the chest, and the terrorist didn't go down. It took a third round through the head to kill him.

These are not the only "failure to stop" stories I've heard about regarding the 5.56 NATO round, and as the shorter-barreled M4 variant becomes more common through the military, these stories most assuredly won't be the last. I'd like to see the statistics of those American soldiers killed or wounded by those insurgents and terrorists that had already taken one or more hits to the torso, but I imagine that even if the military did maintain such statistics, they would probably be classified.

We know that the M4 does not have a long-enough barrel (14.5") to generate the velocities needed for 5.56 NATO cartridges designed for peak velocities in the 20" barrel of the M16. We also know that future assault weapons programs like the XM8 (with an even shorter 12.5" barrel) have been shelved. So does this mean that American soldiers are destined to use under-performing weapons for the time to come?

A handful of weaponsmiths are hoping to develop larger-diameter cartridges that will be able met the needs of American soldiers, among these cartridges being the 6.8 SPC and the 6.5 Grendel.

These cartridges are designed to fit existing 5.56 NATO-compatible weapons systems, meaning that these new and more powerful cartridges could be retrofitted to existing M16s/M4s with a minimum of modifications (new upper receiver, barrel, magazines, etc). That said, with the historically sloth-like speed of the military procurement system, expect our soldiers to be fielding "under-gunned" 5.56 NATO-chambered M4s for a long-time to come.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:59 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Pat Tillman, a former NFL safety with the Arizona Cardinals, quit the NFL in May of 2002 and joined the Army eight months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He enlisted along with his brother Kevin Tillman, who gave up his own chance to play professional baseball. Both brothers excelled in the Army and were assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, and saw duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat Tillman was killed by "friendly fire" in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004.

I thank the Tillmans for their service in the American military. They both gave up potential fame and fortune to serve our country, something that is increasingly rare among celebrities of this age. They put America first, and their own dreams and ambitions second. I was touched by their personal sacrifice, and felt sorrow when I learned that Pat Tillman had given his life for his nation.

Kevin Tillman has since left the U.S. Military, and on October 19, published an article remembering his brother and condemning U.S foreign policy towards combating terrorism.

When you read his article you can feel the frustration and anger Kevin Tillman feels, no doubt due to his own experiences as a soldier and as someone who has experienced direct personal loss as result of the War on Terror. That does not excuse him, however, from using his position of what Maureen Dowd called "absolute moral authority" when applying it to Cindy Sheehan, to spread unsupported hyperbole, innuendo, and half-truths.

Tillman repeats common canards of the anti-war left, but his own military service does not make for him an unassailable shield, nor does restating them make these tired conventions any more true. Saddam Hussein's Iraq did, without any doubt at all, harbor terrorists. We know the most famous of them by name, including Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and Abdul Rahman Yasin. They all killed Americans, and they all lived as Saddam's guests. Yasin was the man who built the 1993 World Trade Center bomb laced with sodium cyanide, the first and so far only attempted chemical weapons attack on American civilians.

Only those on the anti-war left ever (purposefully) misstated that Iraq was involved with the terrorist attacks of September 11, and only the anti-war left ever stated that Saddam's Iraq received uranium from Niger. The Bush Adminstration did not hold those positions. An honest accounting would show that the United States invaded Iraq not because of any involvement with September 11, but because September 11 made us realize how much of a threat Saddam's Iraq could be. Saddam's Iraq were behind previous terror attacks against U. S. targets, and retained the know-how to reconstitute both biological and chemical weapons programs.

Tillman's diatribe is dramatized hyperbole, and some of his commentary is purposefully erroneous and obtuse.

His statement that the suspension of habeus corpus has even occurred is an outright falsehood; no foreign soldier in any war in this nationÂ’s history has ever had habeus corpus rights, and no American civilian is threatened by the Military Commissions Act, which applies only to "alien unlawful enemy combatants"... foreign terrorists.

And yet, Kevin Tillman does provide one unassailable truth in his diatribe, when he stated that, "Somehow a narrative is more important than reality."

His narrative—devoid of concrete facts, long on assertion, hyperbole, and emotional appeal—is just that kind of narrative.

Kevin Tillman purposefully misstates why we went to war in Iraq, even conflating the insurgency and the current sectarian violence as a reason for invasion, and he fundamentally misunderstands—or perhaps avoids—recognizing the essential fact that al Qaeda and terrorist-supporting states such as Syria and Iran have decided to make Iraq the central front in the War on Terror.

Like it or not, Iraq is where the terrorsits are, partially due to our actions, but also due to the emphasis terrorists and their supporters have poured into winning in Iraq.

This leftist anti-war narrative relies on the misguided belief that if we withdraw from Iraq, that somehow, terrorists would cease trying to attack and kill American civilians. That misguided position of disengagement should have died when we were attacked on September 11, 2001, long before we ever invaded Iraq or Afghanistan.

Islamic terrorists have stated time and again the intention to come after us, no matter what we do, and our past withdrawals have only served to embolden them.

It's too bad Kevin Tillman couldn't work that one over-arching and essential fact into his narrative.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:19 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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Michael Yon reports that in what is widely recognized as a "media war" in Iraq, our leader in the public relations battle is an analogue to Forrest Gump.

I talked last night to three infantrymen who were recently back from service in Ramadi and Mosul, and like the two Air Force flight mechanics just back from daily runs to Baghdad from Kuwait I talked to Wednesday night, they said that what the media has been reporting out of Iraq is nothing like what they've seen.

It's bad enough that the terrorist want to use the media (and that the media are quite happy to be used), but when incompetents like LTC Barry Johnson functionally censor reporting, only the terrorists side of the story is told, and that's no way to win a media-driven war.

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Iowahawk had a fall-down funny spoof of a letter from DNC Chairman to banjo-plucking, cross-burning Christian conservatives earlier this week that encompassed the disdain many far left liberals seem to have for religiously-oriented traditional values voters.

AFP decided today to join in the fun, with the slight difference being that they were attempting to provide not satire, but news:

The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Rumsfeld is "a man whose patriotism focus, energy, drive, is exceeded by no one else I know ... quite simply, he works harder than anybody else in our building," Pace said at a ceremony at the Southern Command (Southcom) in Miami.

Rumsfeld has faced a storm of criticism and calls for his resignation, largely over his handling of the Iraq war.

As is typical of the left-leaning media, they seem amazed that leaders in these modern times pray for guidance from a power higher than themselves, and thought that detail was so newsworthy as to make it this story's lede. Other elements, such as Rumsfeld's controversial leadership style, and an apparent show of support at this ceremony from the military estalishment are far more newsworthy elements of the day's events to most people, but not so to AFP.

AFP seems to want to portray Rumsfeld's faith in God as an unpleasant aspect of his personality... perhaps another reason he should resign. I can only wonder what AFP must think about the 77% of Americans that also share his Christian faith. "Horror above horrors," they seem to be saying, "those people pray to Jesus."

Indeed.

Of course, I'm only speculating about what AFP appears to mean. I don't have to speculate, however, about the contempt for Christians dripping from the lips of liberal bloggers.

Cernig seems comfortable comparing Christians in the Bush Administration with al Qaeda terrorists:

Both the Bush administration and Al Qaida extremists like to claim God is on their side. One of those claims has to be wrong, and since it is a matter of faith which has no chance of objective proof this side of heaven I wish they would both just shut the f**k up about it.

Agnostic conservative/practicing liberal Andy Sullivan drips contempt in his Christianism Watch:

Surely the military leadership can be a place where expression of religious faith of one particular variety is restrained. Especially when we are at war with Islamic extremists, and when we must take every care to make sure our millitary [sic] actions aren't perceived abroad as religiously motivated. And surely military decisions should be made on an empirical, pragmatic basis, rather than on messages from Heaven.

The Agonist mockingly suggests that we should be building shrines to Rumsfeld:

High on Martin Luther's 1517 list of grievances was the concept that itermediaries[sic] between God and Man were necessary; that certain select individuals (a.k.a. "priests") relayed Divine will to the rest of us who were too stupid, spiritually inept or otherwise religiously-challenged. Conversely, the Great Unwashed could pray to saints to relay requests to The Big Guy.

After reading this I wonder if we should be building little shrines on our front lawns to Donald Rumsfeld.

Think Progress was wise enough to keep their contempt under wraps and simply chose to provide the lede, knowing that their commenters would do the damage. Sadly, a Christian Democrat was one of the early commenters, asking rather reasonably:

Rummy is on another level, and should be rightly criticized from all angles and positions, but at the end of the day, how can any sane person say they donÂ’t listen to god? I mean, each soul engages uniquely with God in contemplating divine mysteries according to its innate ability, and this engagement persists for all eternity, for the mysteries of the godhead are inexhaustible, as is the enthusiastic application of the soulsÂ’ intellectual ability.

He was quickly shouted down...

For all your flowery rhetoric, you are very obtuse.

We all know what the general said -that God is actually telling Rusmfeld what to do, not that he is merely seeking divine guidance.

Do you actually talk to your god?

And again...

How can any sane person say that god is talking to them?

There is, of course much more, both on the Think Progress thread (including another suggestion that Christians = terrorists) and elsewhere around the blogosphere.

I personally know very few people that are either moderates or conservatives (Democrat or Republican) who feel that a belief in God is a political proposition, and yet so may secular leftists are quick to equate the religious faith of our nationÂ’s leaders as a trait of one political party. From there, they seem to tie their hatred of the Bush Administration to a deep-seated and abiding contempt for Christians. Of course, many of them were likely contemptuous of Christians when Bill Clinton was in the White House as well, they just had fewer outlets (no blogosphere, no mySpace, etc) with which to voice their disgust.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:08 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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Lovely:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday called Israel's leaders a "group of terrorists" and threatened any country that supports the Jewish state.

"You imposed a group of terrorists ... on the region," Ahmadinejad said, addressing the U.S. and its allies. "It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals... This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

"Nations will take revenge," he told a crowd of thousands gathered at a pro-Palestinian rally in the capital Tehran.

Ahmadinejad said Israel no longer had any reason to exist and would soon disappear.

"This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence," he said.

"Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed... You should believe that this regime is disappearing," he said.

What Ahmadinejad's thinly-veiled threat failed to mention is that his apocalyptic Hojjatieh sect quite likely has the intention of "helping" Israel out of existence once Iran has both nuclear warheads and the ability to deliver them.

The implicit threats of this particular exchange, which CNN provides coverage of in greater depth, are directed at Europe:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned Europe that it may pay a heavy price for its support of Israel.

"You should believe that this regime (Israel) cannot last and has no more benefit to you. What benefit have you got in supporting this regime, except the hatred of the nations?" he said in nationally broadcast speech Friday.

"We have advised the Europeans that the Americans are far away, but you are the neighbors of the nations in this region," he said.

"We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt."

I wonder how much longer the pint-sized Holocaust denier will continue to issue threats against the world community without any measurable response from those countries he has threatened to put in the crosshairs.

Time and again, Ahmadinejad says Iran only wants to continue its nuclear program for peaceful means, only to quickly reissue threats that most understand to be links to implied of attacks by MIRV-equipped ICBMs.

I won't be shocked to find that the world will only recognize the threat that Ahmadinejad's Hojjatieh sect brings to hundreds of thousand if not millions of lives as they attempt to bring forth the Hidden Imam. I suspect it will only be after Iran's missiles are launched, and by then it will be far too late.

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A developing story in Iraq is the seizure of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah today by roughly 800 militiamen of Muqtada al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army in response to the kidnapping of the teenage brother of the local head of the a-Madhi Army. the kidnapping came on the heels of the assassination of the head of police intelligence in the area, who belonged to another Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade. The Associated Press is among many of the news organizations covering the story.

The takeover of Amarah is just the latest example of intra-sectarian fighting in Iraq that shows that the current U.S. strategy in Iraq is not working. As a recently-back-from-Iraq Phillip Carter noted yesterday:

During the last two years, the U.S. presence in Iraq has consolidated in massive superfortresses like Anaconda and shut down dozens of smaller bases and outposts across the country. This operational withdrawal was meant to make the U.S. presence more efficient and to reduce the risk of having small units deployed on small bases where they might be vulnerable to insurgent attack; it also forced the Iraqis to become more self-sufficient in securing their own cities. Unfortunately, this has come at a price. When a massive flare-up happens in places like Balad, Tikrit, or Kirkuk, all cities without a permanent U.S. presence, our military must respond from afar, its effectiveness and responsiveness limited by distance.

* * *

This violent weekend proves that America needs to radically change its course in Iraq, while some form of victory still lies within our grasp. First, the U.S. military must reverse its trend of consolidation and redeploy its forces into Iraq's cities. Efficiency and force protection cannot define our military footprint in Iraq; if those are our goals, we may as well bring our troops home today. Instead, we must assume risk by pushing U.S. forces out into small patrol bases in the middle of Iraq's cities where they are able to work closely with Iraqi leaders and own the streets. Counterinsurgency requires engagement. The most effective U.S. efforts thus far in Iraq have been those that followed this maxim, like the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar, which established numerous bases within the city and attacked the insurgency from within with a mix of political, economic, and military action.

I hope that the current situation spurs military leaders in Iraq towards to solution that Carter rightly advocates, starting with a direct confrontation of the 800 al-Mahdi militiamen that have taken over Amarah.

Logistically, it isn't possible for just 800 unsupported militia fighters to establish and maintain the "total control"(as the media so breathlessly puts it) of a city as large as Amarah, which has an estimated population of 340,000 spread across the geographical boundaries formed by the fork of three rivers.

A more detailed satellite map from GlobalSecurity.org can be seen here.

Based upon map data alone, this would be an extremely difficult city for a much larger, better equipped and better trained conventional military force to hold, much less a militia. It seems that geography could be used to section off parts of the city, which could then be cleared of militiamen in the following manner.

Conventional military units could be used to set-up checkpoints in blockading positions around the roads leading into Amrah, while small special operations units from the Iraqi military and supported by U.S. intelligence and strike aircraft should be able to locate and observe concentrations of militiamen (untrained forces have a tendency to cluster) and inflict significant casualties with precision weapons. Militiamen patrolling the city in vehicles would seem to be prime targets for hit-and-run ambushes, which could be assembled on the fly with intelligence from overhead U.S. drone aircraft.

There is no need to engage these militia forces in a frontal assault with conventional forces that would lead to significant damage to the civilian infrastructure when precise intelligence, coordinated small arms and the use of smaller precision airborne munitions could achieve the same objectives.

If such a plan is able to be implemented, the militiamen would be forced to surrender, attempt to escape, or die as they move around the city. Once sufficiently weakened, conventional Iraqi Army and Police forces should be able to mop-up any remaining forces and reestablish control.

American and Iraqi military and police forces must rein in militias, reestablish localized bases across Iraq to better provide stability and quick response capabilities, and work to bring economic and political force to bear to make lasting changes on a local level.

I'm not sure if we need "more boots on the ground" to stabilize Iraq, but I am quite certain that we cannot improve the situation by isolating our forces in large bases and letting militias and sectarian gangs run free.

"All politics is local," said someone very wise. So are insurgencies, which cannot be defeated from the PX of a large megabase.

Update: Bill Roggio has related thoughts on dealing with Mahdi Army leader Muqtada al-Sadr.

Update: The Iraqi Army came in with two companies of soldiers from Basra, and have retaken the city. The threat of going up against a large conventional Army force was apparently enough for the militiamen.

As a side note, Wikipedia (where I got my population number from) claims Amarah's population as being 340,000 in 2002. Lexicorient.com places the city's population at 420,000 as of 2005. The AP article from today states that the population is 750,000.

I think we just found the missing people from the Lancet study.

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Wonder what the Democrats will do first if they managed to gain control of the House of Representatives?

Wonder no more (h/t: Ace):

A plan is in place to censure and impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Orchestrated and organized by the radical Left and Congressman John Conyers, Jr., this plan is ready to go should the Democratic Party take control of the House of Representatives in November.

The plan is the ultimate manifestation of left-wing hatred for George W. Bush rooted in the contentious election of 2000. Since failing to defeat Bush in 2004, the Left has focused its efforts on destroying his presidency by assembling a list of charges aimed at impeaching him.

The article is from FrontPageMag.com and therefore normally of dubious veracity, except for the tiny, troubling details that Democrats have already introduced to Congress H.Res 635 to investigate articles of impeachment, H.Res. 636 to censure President Bush, and H.Res. 637 to censure Vice President Cheney.

Democrats are apparently preparing to attempt to impeach their way into the White House while soldiers are deployed overseas in two wars, a nuclear North Korea threatening the world with nuclear weapons, and an Iran desperate trying to obtain nuclear weapons threatens to wipe Israel off the map.

Is everyone motivated to vote now, or do you like our nation's odds under President Pelosi?

Update: For the record, Lorie Byrd called this back in May.

Her post includes a link to a Washington Post article where Nancy Pelosi promised a series of investigations if the Democrats took control of the House, and when asked about impeachment as a result of the investigations, she said, "You never know where it leads to."

Leading Democrats--not those "on the fringe" as some liberals would have you believe-- are behind these efforts. Maxine Waters, Jim McDermott, Jerrold Nadler, Lynn Woolsey etc, are just some of the House Democrats that have signed on as co-sponsers to all three of Charlie Rangel's censure and impeach resolutions cited above.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:34 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Yeah, I Google-baited the snot out of that one. What of it?

Anyway, it seems that a Vietnamese immigrant running for Congress in California might be behind letters sent to Hispanic voters in Orange County telling them that illegal aliens and immigrants can't vote.

No, I'm not kidding:

State investigators have linked a Republican campaign to letters sent to thousands of Orange County Hispanics warning them they could go to jail or be deported if they vote next month, a spokesman for the attorney general said.

"We have identified where we believe the mailing list was obtained," said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

He declined to identify the specific Republican campaign Wednesday, citing the ongoing investigation.

The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register both reported Thursday that the investigation appeared to be focused on the campaign of Tan D. Nguyen, a Republican who immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam as a child and is now challenging Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez for her seat in Congress. Nguyen's Web site says he opposes illegal immigration.

The letter, written in Spanish, tells recipients: "You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

In fact, immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens can vote.

The fact that he himself is an immigrant seems to have been lost on Mr. Nguyen, though if California is anything at all like North Carolina it is quite possible that illegal aliens could easily cast a ballot.

Were these letters sent out to kindly remind Orange County voters not to break the law, or were they sent out to intimidate voters? I'd guess "yes," which would appear to be just slightly illegal, hence the Attorney General's involvement.

What Nguyen should have done was to send out letters printed in Spanish, Screenwriterese, and Ghost to remind people that illegal aliens, fictional characters, and the dead can't vote, which would have a far more chilling effect on a wider front of the Democratic base, without having crossed legal lines.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The most prominent story on CNN.com's home page this morning is the airing of clips from a insurgent group's propaganda video, and the accompanying news story focusing on the use of insurgent snipers targeting American soldiers. CNN obtained the video from the Islamic Army of Iraq through intermediaries. A similar video from the same group has been circulating since November of 2005 (sidenote: I have not recently seen the 2005 video, and cannot verify if any of the scenes from the 2005 release were used in today's CNN story, and so this might be something worth checking).

The video report and the accompanying story are not particularly newsworthy in and of themselves; insurgent sniper attacks and IEDs have been their primary means of combat since the early days of the war, and sniper attacks have been well-documented.

In any event, the article and video provided by CNN—brace yourselves—doesn't provide anything approaching a honest telling of why insurgent snipers are a "newsworthy" item.

Insurgent snipers in Iraq, as a rule, are armed with Soviet-designed variants of the Druganov rifle, as can been seen employed by an Iraqi insurgent embedded with the New York Times here. The use of snipers using such weapons is one of only a handful of tactics that still work for Iraqi insurgents.

Previous tactics used by the insurgency earlier in the war—large-scale ambushes, fighting from entrenched positions—led to brief, intense battles where the training and weaponry of U.S. forces often completely wiped out insurgent units. The insurgency has never won a sizable engagement against U.S. forces, and has since had to adapt to tactics that give them a batter chance to survive.

This leaves them in a situation with very reduced options, among them being the employment of snipers. The use of snipers is the only tactic they use that can:

• readily be filmed, and;
• does not cause significant civilian casualties as a result (which is bad for propaganda purposes).

The three other methods used by Iraqi insurgents—IEDs, suicide bombings, and mortar attacks—do not meet these criteria.

Even when remotely controlled, IEDs often indiscriminately kill and wound civilians when targeting Iraqi and Coalition forces. Suicide bombings, which typically produce the largest number of overall casualties of any of insurgent tactic, typically kill and injure more civilians that anyone else, as this story today readily attests (my bold):

In the deadliest attack, police opened fire on a bomber as he drove an explosives-laden fuel truck towards the Tamam police station.

The driver was shot dead, but the fuel ignited and set off the explosives, police said.

Civilians bore the brunt of the attack, as many of the casualties were motorists waiting to buy fuel at a nearby petrol station.

Insurgents also use mortars to attack coalition forces, but the attacks are not easily filmed, and are not often effective (though on the rare occasions they are, they can be quiet dramatic).

This leaves the filming of sniper attacks as the only real viable option for insurgents wishing to film an attack that won't also inflame the Iraqi population against them. They can selectively target Americans when they shoot video of sniper attacks for propaganda purposes. They even go out of their way to make this point in the CNN story.

"People are around them," warns the spotter, who seems to be operating the video camera. "Want me to find another place?"

"No, no," comes the reply, "give me a moment."

But this "point" of targeting just Americans is laughable; insurgents routinely target Iraqis, killing 4,000 Iraqi policemen and wounding 8,000 more in the past two years alone.

None of these facts, however, deserves a mention the CNN story that provides the release of insurgent propaganda.

Carefully-edited sniper attacks are all that the insurgency really has going in their favorÂ… except of course, for the dissemination of this propaganda by news outlets like CNN.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:27 AM | Comments (30) | Add Comment
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Via Bryan at Hot Air, the politically-timed Johns Hopkins/Lancet study stating that more than 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the Iraq War has had its very suspect methodology thoroughly crushed:

After doing survey research in Iraq for nearly two years, I was surprised to read that a study by a group from Johns Hopkins University claims that 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war. Don't get me wrong, there have been far too many deaths in Iraq by anyone's measure; some of them have been friends of mine. But the Johns Hopkins tally is wildly at odds with any numbers I have seen in that country. Survey results frequently have a margin of error of plus or minus 3% or 5%--not 1200%.

The group--associated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health--employed cluster sampling for in-person interviews, which is the methodology that I and most researchers use in developing countries. Here, in the U.S., opinion surveys often use telephone polls, selecting individuals at random. But for a country lacking in telephone penetration, door-to-door interviews are required: Neighborhoods are selected at random, and then individuals are selected at random in "clusters" within each neighborhood for door-to-door interviews. Without cluster sampling, the expense and time associated with travel would make in-person interviewing virtually impossible.

However, the key to the validity of cluster sampling is to use enough cluster points. In their 2006 report, "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional sample survey," the Johns Hopkins team says it used 47 cluster points for their sample of 1,849 interviews. This is astonishing: I wouldn't survey a junior high school, no less an entire country, using only 47 cluster points.

Neither would anyone else. For its 2004 survey of Iraq, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) used 2,200 cluster points of 10 interviews each for a total sample of 21,688. True, interviews are expensive and not everyone has the U.N.'s bank account. However, even for a similarly sized sample, that is an extraordinarily small number of cluster points. A 2005 survey conducted by ABC News, Time magazine, the BBC, NHK and Der Spiegel used 135 cluster points with a sample size of 1,711--almost three times that of the Johns Hopkins team for 93% of the sample size.

Since the beginning, Les Roberts, one of the primary authors of the study has mantained that the study is methodologically sound.

Uh, not quite:

Curious about the kind of people who would have the chutzpah to claim to a national audience that this kind of research was methodologically sound, I contacted Johns Hopkins University and was referred to Les Roberts, one of the primary authors of the study. Dr. Roberts defended his 47 cluster points, saying that this was standard. I'm not sure whose standards these are.

Appendix A of the Johns Hopkins survey, for example, cites several other studies of mortality in war zones, and uses the citations to validate the group's use of cluster sampling. One study is by the International Rescue Committee in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which used 750 cluster points. Harvard's School of Public Health, in a 1992 survey of Iraq, used 271 cluster points. Another study in Kosovo cites the use of 50 cluster points, but this was for a population of just 1.6 million, compared to Iraq's 27 million.

When I pointed out these numbers to Dr. Roberts, he said that the appendices were written by a student and should be ignored. Which led me to wonder what other sections of the survey should be ignored.

With so few cluster points, it is highly unlikely the Johns Hopkins survey is representative of the population in Iraq. However, there is a definitive method of establishing if it is. Recording the gender, age, education and other demographic characteristics of the respondents allows a researcher to compare his survey results to a known demographic instrument, such as a census.

Dr. Roberts said that his team's surveyors did not ask demographic questions. I was so surprised to hear this that I emailed him later in the day to ask a second time if his team asked demographic questions and compared the results to the 1997 Iraqi census. Dr. Roberts replied that he had not even looked at the Iraqi census.

And so, while the gender and the age of the deceased were recorded in the 2006 Johns Hopkins study, nobody, according to Dr. Roberts, recorded demographic information for the living survey respondents. This would be the first survey I have looked at in my 15 years of looking that did not ask demographic questions of its respondents. But don't take my word for it--try using Google to find a survey that does not ask demographic questions.

Reviews of the Johns Hopkins/Lancet study casts strong doubts upon the credibility of the methodology used. When compared to other studies, IÂ’d venture to say that the Johns Hopkins study is worthless and irreproducible, perhaps purposefully so. The timing of the report, once again issued in the weeks preceding a national election, casts strong doubts upon the intentions, credibility, and integrity of the researchers.

Then again, their campaign contributions and affiliations should have tipped you to their biases long ago.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:07 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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Via—where else?—Fox News:

The Dow Jones industrial average swept past 12,000 for the first time Wednesday, extending its march into record territory as investors signaled their growing optimism about corporate earnings and the economy.

The index of 30 big-name stocks surpassed 12,000 just after trading began, having already set closing records seven times over the past two weeks. It took the Dow 7 1/2 years to make the trip from 11,000, having been pummeled during that time by the dot-com bust, recession and the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks.

Funny how those "tax cuts for the rich" seem to be stimulating the economy for the entire nation. These are tax cuts that Democrat Charles Rangel said don't "merit renewal."

Of course, Rangel isn't content to just end the tax cuts that have stimulated the economy to these record-breaking levels; he wants to raise your taxes. All of your taxes. Across the board, "no question about it."

Expect all of the tax cuts to end, and for this booming economy to tank, if Democrats win the House of Representatives on Nov. 7.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:59 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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In the wake of the Mike Rogers attempt to "out" a conservative senator (using conveniently anonymous sources, of course) and the overwhelming support the practice of "outing" has among the rabid left wing, Dan Riehl comes out on the offensive against Democratic politicians that seem more than willing to profit from hate:

If you think this is a small matter, I'd argue you're wrong. In total, from swimming in a sea of hate that responded to the death of innocent contractors in Iraq with ">"screw 'em">" prominent Democrat candidates have profited to the tune of $3.5 Million dollars. Below are just a few.

Last I looked, Tester running in Montana had half a million dollars in the bank. Half of those dollars came from a Netroots web now claiming an Idaho Senator is a homosexual three weeks before an election, as if it's anyone's business besides his, even if he were.

Is that the type of Democrat Tester is running as in Montana? Lamont is an empty suit, but he had no trouble filling his pockets with $400k from the very same source. And what of Jim Webb? Does he have a position on Gays in the military? Perhaps it's out.

DNC Chair Howard Dean, Senators Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid, among others, traveled to Nevada to solicit support and lavish praise on the same individual whose blog is now featuring the clearest example of homophobic-laced hate in politics I've ever seen. Even today, they are raising money for a so-called expanded field.

The Democrat Party built this network and that blog. They funded it with advertising, many, including John Kerry, have written copy for it and fueled its rage. And they reaped the fruit of that rage in dollars and in hype.

Both parties have their share of those filled with hate, and I don't think that is in dispute. Nor do I think that a politician or his campaign can thoroughly research all of their small contributors to weed out and refuse contributions from those with extremist ideas. It simply isn't feasible.

But candidates such as Jon Tester, who has apparently received half of his funding from the extreme left wing of the blogosphere that overwhelming supports outing as a political tool, shouldn't have that excuse.

National Democratic leaders such as Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer should not be lavishing praise on a blogger that seemed to reveal in the death of American security contractors like Scott Helvenston, a former Navy SEAL that was among four contractors killed, burned, and mutilated trying to help Eurest Support Services deliver food shipments to American troops.

Some on the right responded to their deaths by creating scholarship funds. Some on the left responded with an enthusiastic "screw 'em"":

Every death should be on the front page (2.70 / 40)

Let the people see what war is like. This isnÂ’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to BushÂ’s folly.

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They arenÂ’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

by kos on Thu Apr 1st, 2004 at 12:08:56 PDT

On the other hand, perhaps Jon Tester is aware of the politics of those that support him. They are, after all, among his largest financial supporters. By taking such large contributions from the Kossacks, perhaps "screw them" is a message Jon Tester, Harry Reid, and Barbara Boxer are willing to stand behind.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:22 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Pretty disgusting behavior, but par for the course for Mike Rogers, who seems to get off on this sort of thing. Rogers accuses Idaho Republican Larry Craig, a father of three and a grandfather of nine, of being a closeted homosexual. Craig denies the charge.

I suppose it is possible Craig or other Republicans are closeted gays, but... so what?

I personally find women attractive, but should that be the only defining trait I use to weigh and measure every activity and interest I have? Why should my sexual orientation be the driving force in my life, overriding all other considerations?

Most people I know primarily care about issues of national security, taxes, crime, controlling growth, education, personal finances, and their family's spiritual and physical well-being. They aren't so emotionally stunted that they can only see their entire world through a single narrow prism of sexual preference, trying to somehow relate it it to all things. Average folks don't twist their realities this way. They have multi-faceted lives.

Sadly, Rogers has generated a tremendous amount of support from blog-reading Democrats, as presently a supermajority of them (70%) support "outing" as a political tool.

I'm rather disgusted by this, and I am not alone.

Conservatives want to fight terrorists, and Democrats want to fight homosexuals.

Sounds like someone has their priorities really screwed up.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:29 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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President Bush signed important pro-torture legislation into law today according to top liberal blogs, opening the floodgates of totalitarianism and completing AmericaÂ’s rapid descent from a land of unrivaled prosperity and freedom into a police state exactly like Iraq under Saddam Hussein's benevolent rule.

"You know, I just love wiping my backside with the Constitution," said the President and newly crowned Emperor for Life. "ItÂ’s a great day to be alive... as long as you arenÂ’t a hippie, or a terrorist." When approached for comment by the White House Press Corps, White House Spokesman Tony Snow gleefully referred reporters down a dark hallway, where muffled gunshots were later heard.

The House Republican leadership which helped push through the landmark legislation completing the destruction of AmericaÂ’s civil liberties, left the signing ceremony to join Vice President Cheney. Cheney was rumored to be hunting captured ACLU lawyers on a private game preserve near Lubbock, TX.

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated by gassing thousands of marsh hippies south of Bakersfield, and Republican strategist KKKarl Rove set off the opening salvo in a barrage of high explosive artillery shells that leveled Columbia University.

Starbucks around the nation are currently under siege, and free thought has now been assigned a cost of $29.95, payable directly to the Republican National Committee.

Howard Dean, currently cowering under Glenn Greenwald's couch in Brazil, could not be reached for comment.

Update: Rev up the "wah" meter. The Daou Report just liked, ensuring us a long line of whiny hippies telling us precisely why using non-invasive interrogation techniques that cause no lasting damage makes the United States exactly like China under Mao, or Russia under Stalin, or Cuba under CastroÂ… which is kinda weird, since they tend to like those guys.

Oh, well, we'll have them IP tracked and interred by the end of the day. IsnÂ’t that right "madmatt," or as we will refer to you from now on, "70.230.8.210"?

Do not move from your location near Highway 24 North and Bingham Farms in Franklin, MI. Agents will be there soon.

THE BUSHCO JUNTA NEVER SLEEPS!

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:19 PM | Comments (55) | Add Comment
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Woodlots and fields across the United States are filling with hunters of game both large and small throughout the coming weeks as rifle and shotgun seasons start in many jurisdictions around the country, but every year about this time we also see an increase—at least anecdotally—of a number of home invasions as the holiday season approaches. ‘Tis the season to be robbing.

As a result, it seems that as we get closer to the holidays, we see an increase in the number of potential firearms purchasers inquiring about home defense weapons for the first time.

Most potential purchasers turn to the "gun expert" in their family or circle of friends for guidance, who often in turn glean their information from other shooters and from gun magazines. Employees of gun shops are often another resource that people know and trust. Sadly, most of the information provided by all of these experts is—in my not so humble opinion—completely wrong.

Pick up any popular gun magazine in the United States today, and you will be quickly overwhelmed at the plethora of tricked-out tactical carbines based on the M16/AR15 platform, intimidating 12-guage combat shotguns, and highly customized pistols costing thousands of dollars. Odds are that when the conversation comes around to which firearms is best suited for home defense, gun magazine authors and your neighborhoods experts will quickly zero in on a 12-guage pump-action shotgun in one flavor or another, with 00-buckshot often mentioned as the ammunition of choice.

You could make a worse choice—a long-barreled single-shot Sharps rifle in .45/70, or on the other extreme, a cheap .25 semi-automatic pistol—but the ubiquitous 12-guage pump touted by neighborhood amateurs and professional gun writers is often the wrong choice for most homeowners.

I first addressed the point when I wrote a post called Overcoming The "Viagra Theory" of Home Defense on March 15 in response to an Instapundit reader looking for advice on a home security shotgun that could be used by her and her husband.

She wrote:

I have a great little .22 Browning rifle for plinking, but my husband and I are looking to purchase a shotgun for home security. Not sure what's the best shotgun to get for this, although I'm leaning towards a pump action for the sound effects, which I'm told can be a good deterrent. Would love to hear recommendations from folks. Also wondering if we can get a shotgun that can also be used for trap or skeet, or are guns just too specialized these days? Looking for cost info too, for new and used. Thanks for your advice!

This is very similar to the questions I got from husband-and-wife customers of mine two weeks ago under a far more stressful situation. They were two young homeowners awoken the previous night when someone attempted to force open the back door of their home. When they came to me the following evening they were still visibly shaken as they explained that theyÂ’d talked to an "expert" they knew who suggested a 12-gauge pump shotgun equipped with a extended magazine and filled with 00-buckshot cartridges. They were not the first customers sent to me who had been told to make that specific choice by the "experts" they knew, and they won't be the last. They went home with something else.

Why?

As mentioned previously, gun geeks are a knowledgeable lot, but not all of what they "know" applies to all people in all situations. Most of your gun magazine writers are by definition long-term firearms users, usually with military, law enforcement, and/or hunting backgrounds. The vast majority of these writers became familiar with the idea of a 12-gauge shotgun filled with 00-buckshot because that is the most common gauge and loading issued to military and police shotgun users over the past 100 years. As a result, the conventional wisdom, based upon decades of successful use of this combination in military and police shootings, not to mention millions of successful big-game animals harvested, is that this loading works. It is almost unquestioned.

But are soldiers and police officers the same audience as home defense purchasers, and would they use their firearms in the same way, and in the same kinds of situations? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding "no."

12-gauge shotguns used by the military are primarily used for close-quarters offensive operations, like house-to-house fighting, and in guarding prisoners. Shotguns used by police are generally used to augment handguns in standoff situations or for guarding prisoners. In both instances, the person wielding the shotgun, either soldier or policeman, is likely to be a reasonably fit male with formal weapons training that is interjecting himself into a situation where he desires to control and overwhelm an opponent with superior short-range firepower.

Homeowners defending their lives against home invasion do not share the same goals, training, or in many instances, physical characteristics as those assumed by gun writers and other experts.

Unless the Census Bureau is way off, the majority of the American population is neither young nor male, nor necessarily in the best of health. Once you consider that a significant number of potential home defense customers are small-framed women, men, or youth, or may be aging, or may have other issues that prevent them from easily controlling a full-size 12-gauge shotgun, the absurdity of recommending this firearm to all home defense users becomes readily apparent.

In the example of my customers above, both were on the short and stocky side, and a full-size shotgun of any gauge was simply out of the equation. Neither could easily shoulder the weapon. All too often, gun writers and other experts overlook this basic issue.

In addition to the size of their frames, neither customer had much experience with firearms nor physically very strong, and so expecting them to reasonably control a shotgun with a pistol grip was also a dubious prospect. The fact that they lived in a community with a relatively high population density—small homes back-to-back and side to side-to-side small lots—made overpenetration also a significant issue.

What did I end up recommending?

This, specifically, even though it was not something we currently had in stock at the time.

While sniffed at by the experts, a .410-bore shotgun loaded with birdshot possesses more close-range stopping power than any popular handgun caliber, with far less danger of overpenetration. It is also much easier to operate and shoot accurately in high-stress situations than any handgun (which required well-practiced fine motor skills). The fact that this particular variant came with a laser-sight made it even more appropriate for these specific customers.

Is a .410 pump shotgun the "perfect" home defense weapon? Of course not; no weapon exists that can address the needs of all homes and homeowners. But what the HS 410 and other similar shotguns offer is a better compromise for most users, one that can be employed more successfully by a greater number of people. It is also often found at a far more reasonable price that the four-figure tactical firearms that seem to compose the bulk of the gun media's editorializing these days.

The advice I gave to the two customers I worked with was partially heeded. They were determined to leave the gun counter with something that night, and as I happened to be out of .410s at that time, they did as good as the could have under their self-imposed deadline.

They went with smaller shotgun than the full-size extended-magazine military-issue 12-gauge recommended by their friend. They selected a youth model 20-gauge with a shorter stock that both of them could handle reasonably well. They also went with light target loads instead of buckshot, which will be just as effective for the 12-15 foot ranges that they would expect, while being far safer in their dense suburban neighborhood.

There is no "one size fits all" solution for home defense. I simply wish more "experts" were willing to admit it.

Update: Just to clarify points made above, the average defensive gun use in home invasion shooting is across a room—generally 3-5 yards. At those ranges, common 12-gauge birdshot loadings penetrate 4.5 inches into ballistic gelatin for #8 shot, and 7.5 inches for #5 shot.

At the same range, 00-buckshot will penetrate 22 inches of ballistic gelatin, or translated into English, it will go through your target with enough velocity left to potentially wound or kill someone on the other side of your target, even if you hit your target with 100% of the pellets fired.

.410 loadings will of course have a smaller mass of shot (11/16 of a ounce at 1100+ fps) than the 12 gauge loading (1 ¼ oz of shot at 1200 fps) and a slightly lower velocity, but as Mossberg noted in it’s own research, that produces more than 800 ft/lbs of force at the home defense ranges mentioned, or about twice that of the venerable 230-grain Federal Hydrashok in.45ACP. and at these 3-5 yard ranges, they are quite capable of a one-shot stop.

If additional shots are necessary, the low-recoil, low-report of a .410 will make follow-up shots considerably easier than would a larger-bore shotgun. Fire a 12-gauge in an enclosed 12x12 box in low-light conditions, and tell me how easy it is to simulate a self-imposed flash-bang. Your odds of survival go down dramatically if you temporarily give up two of your five senses.

Update: I also realize now that I failed to specify which loading I'd recommend for a .410 shotgun for home defense. I tend to prefer the Winchester X4134 loading, a 3" shell loaded with 11/16 oz. of #4 shot, the Federal H413 GameShok with #4 shot, or the Remington Express Extra Long Range #4 shot in the SP413 loading.

These 3" loadings will in most circumstances at a 3-5 yard range produce a hole 1-3" in diameter penetrating up to 6 inches to the dead center of a human target, and the low-impulse recoil will allow rapid follow-up shots.

Again, no gun is suited for all self-defense scenarios, but for those who will choose to barricade themselves in a predetermined safe room and will have the good sense to stay there until arrive and clear the home, this particular firearm and ammunition choice may be ideal for some.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:10 AM | Comments (134) | Add Comment
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Captain Poofy is starting to sound like a great proponent of regime change, primarily his own:

Blaming the United States for instigating U.N. Security Council sanctions against it, North Korea on Tuesday called the resolution approved over the weekend a "declaration of war."

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency that the country wants "peace but is not afraid of war."

The North "vehemently denounces the resolution, a product of the U.S. hostile policy toward (the North) and totally refutes it," the statement said, according to a report from The Associated Press.

North Korea's statement followed U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling the U.N. resolution a "clear message" that Pyongyang must "make a new set of calculations" about its nuclear endeavors.

"North Korea cannot endanger the world and then expect other nations to conduct business as usual in arms or missile parts," Rice told reporters on Monday. "It cannot destabilize the international system and then expect to exploit elaborate financial networks built for peaceful commerce."

As some have mentioned previously, the nuclear gambit is North Korea's last straw. They have nothing else with which to threaten the world. Their nuclear threats fall short with missiles that won't fly and nuclear weapons that won't detonate, and their massive conventional army is decades obsolete. All the have left is their arms business, and the U.N. blockade is taking that away.

At the current rate of escalation, I would not be all that surprised to find North Korea may very well be considering a disasterous invasion of South Korea if a pending second nuke test fails. They had so little to begin with, that they have almost nothing else to lose.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:19 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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