Target Centermass

Month: March 2005

  • Egyptian Stabs Kissing Tourists

    Methinks here is a person that needs to be locked away and fast.

    An Egyptian stabbed a Hungarian man and woman, slightly wounding them, after the couple kissed while pausing for a photograph near a mosque at Cairo’s popular tourist bazaar, police said Tuesday.

    Hesham Mohammed, 36, apparently was upset by the kiss Monday in front of Al-Hussein Mosque, a security official said on customary condition of anonymity. The mosque is adjacent to the Khan el-Khalili market where foreign tourists flock to buy souvenirs and locally made crafts.

    The Hungarians, who were not identified, were treated at a nearby hospital for minor wounds, the official said, and Mohammed was being questioned. He was described as unemployed and suffering from severe depression.

    Tourism is Egypt’s top foreign-currency earner, bringing in more than $7 billion Cdn last year and providing an estimated 2.2 million jobs.

    First off, knifing foreign smoochers is not an economically sound practice for the Egyptians to adopt as a regular practice. Second, it would be quite safe to say the unemployed Mohammed is severely depressed. I would also guess that he’s either a freakin’ loon, bitterly single, or both.

  • Reciprocity XIV

    As is my tradition here at Target Centermass, I’d like to take a moment to thank those who have blogrolled or linked to TCm.

    First, thanks to the following fine blogs for adding TCm to their blogrolls:

    Second, thanks to the following for recent links to TCm:

    As always, if you’ve linked or blogrolled Target Centermass and I haven’t found you, please send an email or post a comment. No good deed should go unacknowledged.

  • Bush to Award First Medal of Honor for Iraq Service

    Sergeant First Class Paul Smith will become the first recipient of our military’s highest award next Monday when President Bush presents the Medal of Honor to SFC Smith’s family.

    The first Medal of Honor awarded for service in Iraq will be presented next Monday in a ceremony at the White House, White House spokesman Scott McClellan announced Tuesday.

    For the family of Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, the honor, the nation’s highest military award, brings conflicting feelings: pride that he’ll be remembered among America’s bravest soldiers, grief that he died two years ago in Iraq.

    “At least my mind is at rest because with the Medal of Honor, Paul’s name will go on in history,” his wife, Birgit Smith, said Tuesday from her home in Holiday, Fla. “His name will never die. This is very important to me.”

    President Bush will present the medal to Smith’s 11-year-old son, David, during the White House ceremony, Birgit Smith said.

    There’ll be a second ceremony next Tuesday morning at the Pentagon. Then in the afternoon, the family will attend another ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, where Smith’s headstone will be unveiled.

    Smith was nominated for the Medal of Honor by commanders of the 3rd Infantry Division after his death on April 4, 2003.

    Smith, 33, died behind the trigger of a .50-caliber machine gun as he fought off an Iraqi attack near Baghdad’s international airport. He’s credited with saving more than 100 American lives and killing at least 50 Iraqis.

    I missed the news when the award was announced in February, but Blackfive had the story, pointing towards this account.

    What Paul Smith did on April 4, 2003, was climb aboard an armored vehicle and, manning a heavy machine gun, take it upon himself to cover the withdrawal of his men from a suddenly vulnerable position. Smith was fatally wounded by Iraqi fire, the only American to die in the engagement.

    “I’m in bittersweet tears,” said Smith’s mother, Janice Pvirre. “The medal isn’t going to bring him back. … It makes me sad that all these other soldiers have died. They are all heroes.”

    With the medal, Smith joins a most hallowed society.

    Since the Civil War, just 3,439 men (and one woman) have received the Medal of Honor. It recognizes only the most extreme examples of bravery – those “above and beyond the call of duty.”

    That oft-heard phrase has a specific meaning: The medal cannot be given to those who act under orders, no matter how heroic their actions. Indeed, according to Library of Congress defense expert David F. Burrelli, it must be “the type of deed which, if he had not done it, would not subject him to any justified criticism.”

    From World War II on, most of the men who received the medal died in the action that led to their nomination. There are but 129 living recipients.

    Smith is the first soldier from the Iraq war to receive the medal, which had not previously been awarded since 1993. In that year, two Army Special Forces sergeants were killed in Somalia in an action described in the bestselling book Black Hawk Down.

    The officer who called Birgit Smith on Tuesday nominated her husband for the medal.

    Lt. Col. Thomas Smith (no relation) sent in his recommendation in May 2003, beginning a process that involved reviews at 12 levels of the military chain of command before reaching the White House. On Tuesday, Lt. Col. Smith expressed satisfaction that the wait was over, and great admiration for his former subordinate.

    In the Army, he said, you hear about men who won the Medal of Honor. “You think they are myths when you read about them. It’s almost movielike. You just don’t think you’d ever meet someone like that.”

    […]

    Lt. Col. Smith commanded the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, during the American attack on Iraq, which began March 20, 2003. On the morning of April 4, the engineers found themselves manning a roadblock not far from Baghdad International Airport.

    A call went out for a place to put some Iraqi prisoners.

    Sgt. Smith volunteered to create a holding pen inside a walled courtyard. Soon, Iraqi soldiers, numbering perhaps 100, opened fire on Smith’s position. Smith was accompanied by 16 men.

    Smith called for a Bradley, a tank-like vehicle with a rapid fire cannon. It arrived and opened up on the Iraqis. The enemy could not advance so long as the Bradley was in position. But then, in a move that baffled and angered Smith’s men, the Bradley left.

    Smith’s men, some of whom were wounded, were suddenly vulnerable.

    Smith could have justifiably ordered his men to withdraw. Lt. Col. Smith believes Sgt. Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning the courtyard would jeopardize about 100 GIs outside – including medics at an aid station.

    Sgt. Smith manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop an abandoned armored personnel carrier and fought off the Iraqis, going through several boxes of ammunition fed to him by 21-year-old Pvt. Michael Seaman. As the battle wound down, Smith was hit in the head. He died before he could be evacuated from the scene. He was 33.

    Thank you, Sergeant First Class Paul Smith.

  • Israeli Militants Warn of Civil War

    Does anybody know how to say “Attack Fort Sumter” in Hebrew?

    Militant settlers warned of violence and civil war after Israel’s parliament cleared away a major obstacle in front of a planned pullout from all 21 Gaza settlements and four in the West Bank this summer, handily defeating a call for a referendum.

    The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, following Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s lead, rejected the plebiscite proposal yesterday by a vote of 72-39. Sharon had denounced the call for a referendum as a last-ditch effort by the settlers and their backers – many in his own Likud party – to scuttle the pullout.

    Polls show about two-thirds of Israelis in favour of the withdrawal, roughly the same proportion as the Knesset vote. But the settlers, far from giving in, are simply redirecting their efforts to demonstrations and possible violence.

    First, it should be pointed out that two-thirds favoring withdrawal does not mean one-third favors the settlements; rather, it only means that a portion of one-third are for the settlements. I’ll wager that the percentage of this portion that actually believes in the idea of an Israeli civil war over the settlement issue is minute. There’s always that little matter of the threat of outsiders surrounding the nation and hoping for its demise that will keep such matters from happening.

    Thousands of settlers, many of them teenagers, demonstrated in front of the Knesset during the debate and vote. When the wide margin was announced, the settlers seemed momentarily deflated. Leaders called off the second day of the planned 36-hour vigil and said they would abandon their efforts to change the parliament’s mind.

    But as their options narrowed, their rhetoric heated up.

    “The Knesset has voted for violence, for civil war, for the next political assassination in Israel,” said Yehuda Glick, once the spokesman for a government ministry, referring to the 1995 murder of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an extremist Jew opposed to Rabin’s compromises for peace.

    Civil war? No. Another assassination by an Israeli radical? A legitimate threat.

    Here’s hoping Israel doesn’t stray, just as the entire region is fumbling its way towards popular reform. Self-inflicted bleeding is not a good thing in shark-infested waters.

  • Revolutionary War Remnant Washes Ashore

    Here’s an interesting little treat for the military history buff: an underwater portion of a bridge crossing Lake Champlain to the famed Fort Ticonderoga has floated to the surface and been recovered.

    For more than two centuries, the waters of Lake Champlain have hidden the remains of a marvel of 18th-century engineering — a bridge built by 2,500 sick and hungry Continental soldiers.

    Now a piece of that bridge sits in the preservation laboratory at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, destined to give visitors a portal into revolutionary times.

    “When you look at what they wanted to do, it connects you right to the American Revolution,” said the museum’s executive director, Art Cohn.

    Historians say the bridge was constructed in March and April 1777. Thousands of huge pine logs were skidded onto the ice and notched together. Weighed down with rocks, these caissons sunk to the lake bottom through holes the soldiers cut in the ice.

    By spring 22 caissons, some up to 50 feet tall, reached the lake’s surface. They were joined by a 16-foot-wide deck that linked Fort Ticonderoga in New York and Mount Independence in Vermont.

    […]

    If the part of the bridge above the water was destroyed, the part under the surface was not. The caissons were set so deep that they did not interfere with boats on the lake.

    The bridge was largely forgotten until 1983, until divers discovered the caissons, still largely intact, laid out in an arc between the two shores.

    Cohn and others began to study the bridge more intensely in 1992, mapping the locations of the caissons and recovered thousands of Revolutionary War artifacts believed dumped in the lake when the British abandoned the fortifications in late 1777. Some of those artifacts are now on display at the Mount Independence Visitor Center in Orwell.

    Then, last year, a 26-foot beam estimated to weigh between 1,500 and 1,800 pounds surfaced and was pulled to shore near Fort Ticonderoga.

    The story gives a little more information on the roles that the bridge and the fort played in the war. It goes on to discuss the preservation efforts and plans for display. Go read and enjoy if you find these types of things as intriguing as I do.

  • More on EU’s Chinese Arms Ban

    In my previous post, I blogged against the push by France to lift the European Union’s current ban on weapons sales to China. I also blogged against France in general and Jacques Chirac in particular, but that was for fun.

    Today, my stance finds unexpected support — a Los Angeles Times editorial (courtesy of the Decatur Daily Democrat). I’ll omit the initial and closing paragraphs, which consist of the expected qualifications against the U.S. and the Bush administration.

    China’s adoption of an anti-secession law aimed at Taiwan that reserves the right to use military force plays into the hands of the Bush administration and Congress, which adamantly oppose the sale of European weapons to China. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice increased the pressure Monday when she declared in Beijing that if the EU lifted the ban, it “would not send the right signal.”

    European weapons sales would stoke the Asian arms race, even if they would be unlikely to radically change the region’s balance of power. If the Europeans sold advanced fighter jets to China, Taiwan would turn to the United States for increased sales, which Congress would almost surely approve. But for China, which nurses memories of being carved up by Western imperial powers in the 19th century, the issue is primarily about pride; it’s livid at still being treated as a pariah nearly 16 years after the brutal suppression of Tiananmen Square demonstrators.

    France, the world’s third-biggest weapons seller, has never hesitated to provide African and Middle East dictators with arms, and is chafing to treat China like a normal country that poses no threat to peace. What’s more, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana says the embargo is “unfair” and wants to increase the organization’s clout by wooing Beijing.

    China has been counting on these two allies to prevail, but it overlooked the unwieldy, democratic nature of the EU. No matter how powerful France is inside the union, it can’t, like the Chinese Politburo, carry out its will by fiat. For one thing, Germany doesn’t want to risk another quarrel with the United States. And China’s peremptory anti-Taiwan move has emboldened Britain and other countries to point to Beijing’s abysmal human rights record. Without a consensus, the EU cannot terminate the weapons ban.

    Also coming out with similarly ominous warnings was a think tank with affiliations with the Japanese Defence Ministry.

    The [National Institute for Defence Studies’] report said the future of the military balance between China and Taiwan was becoming unclear as China moves ahead with the modernisation of its military.

    It warned that lifting Europe’s embargo on arms exports to China could help Beijing vastly improve its weaponry and military technology.

    Russia, a long-time supplier of arms to China, would likely see Europe as its rival and launch an aggressive campaign to sell more arms to Beijing, the report said.

    “We believe Russia would try aggressively to sell arms to China if the European Union lifts its embargo on arms exports,” said Tomio Kougami, one of the experts who wrote the report.

    An interesting twist there, that a lifting of the EU ban could actually spur greater arms dealings from Russia to China. All the more reason the push back against Chirac’s efforts in this matter.

  • Chirac: Lifting Chinese Arms Ban ‘Legitimate’

    It’s just Jacques being his usual cheese-dick Jacques self: Oui, we should sell arms to China.

    French President Jacques Chirac told a concerned Japan that China’s desire for the European Union to lift its arms embargo was “legitimate” and would not entail exports of sensitive weapons and technology.

    France has been a prime supporter of ending the ban on selling arms to China, a move opposed by both the United States and its ally Japan.

    “The prime minister told me of his concerns. He asked me for explanations,” Chirac told a joint news conference after talks with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

    “I indicated to him that the decision of the European Union does not imply a change in exports of sensitive arms or technology to China as they are subject to rules which cannot be broken,” Chirac said.

    “Hence the decision does not mean things would change. It’s a political decision,” he said.

    “We believe that this lifting is legitimately sought by China and that’s why we have taken this decision.”

    Koizumi reiterated Japan’s opposition to lifting the embargo.

    “We told the president that we are against it,” Koizumi said.

    “Japan does not regard China’s economic growth as a threat. Rather we regard it as an opportunity. However, in relation to security concerns such as the Taiwan issue Japan has been asking for a peaceful resolution,” Koizumi said.

    The European Union had initially set a goal of lifting the ban by the end of June, when the presidency of the 25-member bloc shifts from Luxembourg to Britain.

    Britain had suggested that the end of the weapons sale ban could be delayed after China on March 14 adopted the Anti-Succession Law. Chinese Foreign Ministry said China opposes to linking the lifting of arms ban with the new law, saying they are irrelevant.

    But Chirac has vowed to push ahead and end the embargo by the end of June.

    Look, there’s a reason that the U.S. Army only somewhat-jokingly divides its answers in armor vehicle identification to three categories — friend, foe or French. The bastards have historically proved that they’ll sell to anyone. It’s all about the Franc.

    Ahh, the French, unable to successfully protect themselves since the days of Napoleon, and quite willing to expect the Americans to save their collective asses for almost a century. Don’t give me that crap about WWI until you read John Mosier’s The Myth of the Great War and can counter the argument that, contrary to prevailing opinion that American intervention only provided the Allies’ tipping point, the Americans actually saved an imcompetent French military from destruction. I won’t discuss the WWII or Indochina French debacles, but will point that the country meekly chose the wrong side of history by hedging its bets by bailing out of the military side of NATO in 1966 (only to boldly return to the fold in 1992 after the Cold War was over).

    It’s all about the Franc. Despite the obvious, oh so obvious, intentions of the Chinese.

    It’s all about the Franc.

    Hey, Jacques, let me be the first to welcome you and your ilk to the wrong side of history once again.

  • Troops Killed by Afghan Landmine Identified

    I blogged yesterday about the poor reporting of the loss of four American troops whose vehicle struck a landmine while scouting for a potential shooting range. Those lost troopers have now been identified.

    Thank you, Guardsmen, for your service and sacrifice.

    The four Hoosier soldiers who died Saturday in Afghanistan came from across the state but included one man from Indianapolis, a spokesman from Task Force Phoenix in Kabul confirmed today.

    The National Guard soldiers died after a land mine exploded under their vehicle. They were Capt. Michael T. Fiscus, 37, of Warsaw; Master Sgt. Michael Hiester, 33, of Bluffton; Spc. Brett Hershey, 23, of Indianapolis; and Spc. Norman Snyder, 19, of Carlisle.

    Their deaths marked Indiana’s bloodiest day since the war on terrorism began, and the nation’s worst day in Afghanistan in almost 10 months.

    The soldiers were part of the 76th Infantry Brigade.

    “Four brave and irreplaceable citizens have lost their lives for all of us in the noblest of causes. I ask the prayers of every Hoosier for their families as we grieve and await their return home,” Gov. Mitch Daniels said in a statement.

    My condolences and best wishes to their families and loved ones.

  • Quote of the Week, 27 MAR 05

    We do not want war any more than the West does, but we are less interested in peace than the West, and therein lies the strength of our position.

    —Joseph Stalin

  • Michael Jackson’s Hospital?

    I had planned on signing off for the night, but stumbled onto this incredible graphic (hat tip to Joe Gandelman at Dean’s World).

    Did everybody involved really not see the problem?! Apparently, somebody finally saw the light, as it seems to have been yanked. Still, follow the link for a good chuckle.