Covers from Doc Savage books from 1933-1949. c00L! I'm a big fan of the exploits of Dr. Clark Savage, Jr., and his team of multitalented adventurers; I own a couple of latter-day reprints, including a recent version of this story. I also dug the Doc Savage references in the excellent comic The Rocketeer. (A comic with Doc Savage and Bettie Page...what's not to like?)
I just discovered Snowblood Apple, a Web site devoted to reviews of "Asian extreme cinema," including flicks sure to be familiar to Planet Swank readers: Audition, Battle Royale, The Ring, and many others. The site even offers wallpaper of the various films along with its reviews! c00L!
Last Wednesday, I noted that former pro football star William "The Refrigerator" Perry was to challenge reigning champion Takeru Kobayashi for victory in Coney Island's annual July 4 hot dog eating contest.
Here's a once again reigned supreme of the 150-pound Kobayashi that examines some possible secrets behind the gastronomic gladiator's success.
There's a new world order in the dog-eat-hot-dog world of competitive eating. For five of the last six years, when the smoke from the grill cleared at the landmark Nathan's wiener stand, the winner was ... a diminutive Japanese man.
Led by two-time defending champion Takeru Kobayashi, a mere 5-foot-7 and 130 pounds with a 30-inch waist, Japanese eaters are dominating the holiday contest. The Japanese media covers Kobayashi like he was Elvis and Coney Island was Graceland; the Fourth of July now looms as a big day in both Nagano and New York.
Kobayashi's 100 mph style of eating — snapping the dogs in half, a move dubbed "The Solomon Method" — earned him the nickname "Tsunami." He's yet to swallow a finger, although it certainly seems possible.
Adding insult to indigestion, Kobayashi is an overwhelming favorite to keep the mustard-yellow belt symbolic of gastronomic supremacy in the land of the rising bun. No one has come close to the 50 1/2 franks that he inhaled in 12 minutes last year.
...No one knows for sure, but there are theories.
_ The "Jack Sprat" theory: Although it seems contradictory, the scrawny Kobayashi's physique serves him better than the 6-foot-4, 400-pound frame of U.S. hopeful Eric "Badlands" Booker.
"My guess is when you're 130 pounds, you have more room for the stomach to expand and accommodate the hot dogs in a single sitting," said Samantha Heller, senior nutritionist at the New York University Medical Center.
..._ The "Zen and Now" theory: While the American eaters are content to hang around Coney Island in the hours before the eat-off, Kobayashi returns to his hotel room and meditates.
..._ Finally, there's "The Fridge" theory: Who knows, but pass the franks.
"I don't know nothing about it," said William "The Refrigerator" Perry, the ex-Chicago Bears star who will join this year's fray. "I'm just going in to have fun."
Perry, who is currently the size of three Kobayashis, is a long shot to salve the pride of the American chowhounds. Booker, a New York subway conductor who downed 30 dogs earlier this year, is the best hope.
The Japanese dominance dates to 1997, when Hirofumi Nakajima defeated Ed Krachie in the annual eat-off. He duplicated the effort next year.
Athough I opposed the war in Iraq, I never had any doubt that Bush was going to invade regardless. That being the case, you'd have thought his administration would at least have had some sort of a plan for not screwing up the aftermath. Today's WaPo has a triple-dip headline, though, indicating that things are not going all that well.
The wave of more sophisticated attacks on U.S. troops and civilian occupation forces in Iraq is raising new worries among military experts that the 21-day war that ended in April was an incomplete victory that defeated Saddam Hussein's military but not his Baath political party.
Neutralizing Baathist resistance is proving to be a more difficult job than the Pentagon calculated, and the continuing violence is becoming an embarrassment, one U.S. official in Baghdad said.
A Special Operations soldier was killed by hostile fire in the southwest part of Baghdad yesterday. In another ambush, a Chevrolet Suburban belonging to the U.S. civilian occupation authority was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while en route to the Baghdad airport. Army Humvees have been attacked on that road before, but this apparently was the first time a civilian vehicle had been hit, indicating a new form of targeting in anti-American attacks.
Two U.S. soldiers also may have been abducted in Baghdad. In addition, Iraqis cooperating with the U.S. authorities, such as two electrical workers who were killed by a bomb yesterday, are now being attacked following weeks of threats by Iraqi opposition groups that they would be targets.
Those actions came on top of Wednesday's mob violence that killed six British troops in southern Iraq, the Shiite-dominated area that until this week generally had been considered quiet and portrayed by Pentagon officials as a success story.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said the trend in Iraq is still good and should not be seen through the lens of one day's events. "The direction is pretty clear," he said in a telephone interview. "It is toward a more secure Iraq," in which the Baathist position is weakening and basic services are being restored.
Wolfowitz did not foresee any major changes in the U.S. military posture in response to the attacks. "I think that the basic approach that the military is using is a sound approach," Wolfowitz said.
But experts on Iraq responded to the attacks with new concern about the trend of events.
"I thought we were holding our own until this week, and now I'm not sure," said retired Air Force Col. Richard M. Atchison, a former intelligence officer for the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East. "If we don't get this operation moving soon, the opposition will continue to grow, and we will have a much larger problem."
Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency expert on Arab military issues, said, "There are a lot of worrisome aspects about the current situation. Resistance is spreading geographically, resistance groups seem to be proliferating in Sunni areas, resistance elements appear to be tactically adaptive, resistance elements appear to be drawn from multiple elements of Sunni society, our operations inevitably create animosity by inflicting civilian casualties, disrupting lives, humiliating people and damaging property."
Because the war was so narrowly focused on Hussein's government in Baghdad, a large part of the Iraqi population does not feel as if it was defeated, said retired Army Col. Scott R. Feil. "As I heard one Iraqi say, the Americans defeated Saddam, but not the Iraqi people, so the psychology of the loser is not present," he said.
Wolfowitz agreed with that view, saying, "Almost because the regime failed so quickly, the major remnants of the regime were around."
Making the situation more worrisome, military analysts said, is that Iraqi fighters appear to be adapting their tactics to make them more effective. For example, during the war, Iraqis frequently died while attacking tanks with automatic weapons and other small arms. But this month's attacks have been directed at more vulnerable targets, such as Jeep-like Army Humvees and foot soldiers, said retired Army Col. Andrew J. Bacevich.
In addition, some analysts said, the relatively small size of the U.S. invasion force may be a source of some of the postwar chaos, because it has proven inadequate to the task of occupying the country. "We're winning, I think, but it has taken longer than it might have because the occupation force really wasn't large enough," said Thomas Donnelly, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute who is now in Baghdad. "I don't think the outcome will be much different, but still it's taken longer and introduces an element of doubt."
U.S. casualties are likely to be a frequent occurrence for months to come, said another U.S. official in Iraq. "I suspect we will see limited violence for six months or so," the official said earlier this week. The problem, he said, is that to be effective, U.S. troops have to be out conducting patrols and searches, manning checkpoints, detaining suspects. All that is necessary to boost stability in Iraq, he said, but also makes them vulnerable.
You don't have to read between the lines of this report too much to discover that the hawks's own war-on-the-cheap plan is responsible for this uncomfortable situation: Going in with too small a force and a decaptiation strategy that destroyed the command structure but left the military relatively free to melt into the civilian population with their weapons. The plan was to decaptiate the regime and then impose order with the existing structure; instead, that structure appears to be turning against us. I certainly hope the hawks have a brilliant idea to alleviate this deadly and unstable situation, but I suspect that McNamara's Wolfowitz's bland assurances and the refrain that the steady trickle of casualties are "militarily insignificant" indicates that these jokers have no clue about how a guerilla war is fought, let alone won.
At least 18 U.S. military personnel have been killed in attacks since President Bush declared the end of major hostilities in Iraq on May 1, and there have been dozens of other ambushes. U.S. and sympathetic Iraqi officials expressed concern today that an increasingly organized and well-armed resistance movement is beginning to coalesce around remnants of the former government's security apparatus.
"It's being planned and being planned well by small groups," a U.S. official said. "But we don't see a real command-and-control structure."
I hate to break it to the official, who says there's "no command and control structure" as if it's some sort of advantage for us, I doubt it really is. For one thing, much of our strategy in the war was targeting the command and control structure. It's elementary that, having seen the dangers therein, the Iraqis would break into small, independent cells , each tasked with wreaking as much havoc as possible. There doesn't have to be a "real command-and-control structure" for guerillas to be a threat, as our forces are discovering at their peril.
And when you get right down to it, can you blame the Iraqis? As loyal Americans, we'd do the same thing were we invaded and occupied. Sheesh, haven't the neocon hawks ever seen Red Dawn? The Iraqis never had a chance of resisting the US forces militarily. But when you combine this story with the previous one, you get an ominous picture: The guerillas are adapting their tactics to neutralize our advantages and enhance theirs, and we, apprently, are not following suit.
But it isn't as if these developments come as a surprise; they were a concern a dozen years ago during Gulf War Mark I. The evident failure of the hawks to prepare for this contingency is absolutely staggering in its incompetence.
More good news from the same piece:
Sweltering in 115-degree heat, many Baghdad residents are increasingly agitated by the failure of occupation authorities to maintain basic services. Much of the capital, and other parts of Iraq, have been without electricity or water for days. A number of fuel lines essential to power plants and pumping stations have been sabotaged. Iraqis are using buckets to draw water from the Tigris River, which runs through the city and is so shallow at points that children play soccer on the riverbed.
The popular anger and frustration are being exacerbated by rumors sweeping the city that occupation authorities cut off services to punish Iraqis for the recent attacks on U.S. troops.
U.S. officials have repeatedly tried to explain the reasons behind their difficulties restarting power, including decaying facilities and sabotage, but most Iraqis are unaware of their pronouncements. Without electricity, they cannot watch television, and there is no widely circulated Arabic-language newspaper that reflects the U.S. point of view.
"Rumor has become a fifth column for the Americans," said Sabih Azzawi, who led protests against a U.S. decision, later reversed, to disband the Iraqi military. "Rumors are very dangerous when the situation is so unsettled." Azzawi said Hussein's supporters were behind the anti-American rumors.
Then there's the encouraging news that an Iraqi militia the British were hoping would bolster their seciruty forces operated in the longstanding tradition of American militia -- when the shooting started, they cut and ran.
The militia had been assembled by an influential local opponent of ousted president Saddam Hussein as a way to maintain law and order in the bedlam of postwar Iraq. The effort so impressed British military commanders in charge of the area that they issued laminated identification cards to members and allowed them to continue patrolling.
But on Tuesday, when an angry mob surrounded the police station here and began shooting at a group of British military police inside the building, the militiamen vanished. With only a few Iraqi police trainees fighting in behalf of the outnumbered British, the throng waited until the soldiers had exhausted their ammunition before barging in and killing at least four of them at close range.
A total of six soldiers were killed and eight wounded in that incident and an earlier gun battle between paratroops and townspeople. As military officials continued to weigh their response, British forces stayed clear of the town today. The militiamen, however, reappeared with their usual swagger, manning checkpoints and zipping around in their trucks.
The reliance on militiamen to maintain public order -- a tactic used by British forces in other parts of Iraq because of what some military officials contend is a shortage of troops -- has led to unease among many Iraqis. The irregular security forces are not only poorly trained and equipped, they say, but place the interests of their tribal, religious and political leaders above the law.
No one doubted that Saddam had a nuclear program in 1991. But this material alone could not possibly be the germ of a nuclear program -- as I understand matters, it takes hundreds of centrifuges to extract uranium. And as this article points out, the fact that these materials had been butried and apparently forgotten suggests that Saddam had abandoned his nuclear program.
Indirectly challenging a U.S. argument for war on Iraq, the UN atomic agency said Thursday that a find of parts from Baghdad's original nuclear weapons program appears to back its stance that the project had never been reactivated.
The comments reflected the ongoing dispute between the United Nations and Washington over whether outsted president Saddam Hussein was trying to make weapons of mass destruction.
The U.S. administration argued such programs existed in going to war against Baghdad, while UN inspectors said their searches on the ground turned up no evidence of such programs.
A U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday that American authorities were examining parts and documents from an Iraqi weapons program run in the early 1990s that were handed over by a former Iraqi nuclear scientist.
The scientist, Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, was quoted as saying he had kept the parts buried in his Baghdad garden on the orders of Saddam Hussein's government. Once sanctions against Iraq ended, the material was to be dug up and used to reconstitute a program to enrich uranium to make a nuclear weapon, Obeidi claimed to U.S. officials.
The intelligence official acknowledged the find was not the "smoking gun" that U.S. authorities are seeking to prove U.S. claims that Iraq had an active program to develop a nuclear weapon.
In Vienna Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency went even further, suggesting the revelations tended to back its arguments that there was no evidence of such revived programs.
"The findings and comments of Obeidi appear to confirm that there has been no post-1991 nuclear weapons program in Iraq and are consistent with our reports to the Security Council," said agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky.
The IAEA has long monitored Iraq's nuclear programs and has questioned U.S. claims that Saddam had been reviving his nuclear weapons program.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, said early on there was no evidence to support Washington's claims. Other UN inspectors found no signs of biological or chemical weapons.
Remember, during the inspections process, the head of the IAEA stated as definitely as one could that Iraq had no active nuclear weapons program. They are practically impossible to hide. Even if Saddam unearthed the material and reconstructed a nuclear program, it'd have been a simple matter to take it out. The justification for war was that Saddam was a threat that demanded an invasion exactly when Bush wanted it; no delay could be tolerated. The case for that urgency simply does not exist.
Meanwhile, the Republicans -- apparently counting on unquestioned support from the military -- are slashing spending that benefits service people in order to pay for Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Daily Kos quotes an editorial in the Army Times:
Nothing but lip service
(Issue Date: June 30, 2003)
In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap -- and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately.
For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful -- and unnecessary -- including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about one a day.
Similarly, the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.
Then there's military tax relief -- or the lack thereof. As Bush and Republican leaders in Congress preach the mantra of tax cuts, they can't seem to find time to make progress on minor tax provisions that would be a boon to military homeowners, reservists who travel long distances for training and parents deployed to combat zones, among others.
Incredibly, one of those tax provisions -- easing residency rules for service members to qualify for capital-gains exemptions when selling a home -- has been a homeless orphan in the corridors of power for more than five years now.
The chintz even extends to basic pay. While Bush's proposed 2004 defense budget would continue higher targeted raises for some ranks, he also proposed capping raises for E-1s, E-2s and O-1s at 2 percent, well below the average raise of 4.1 percent.
The Senate version of the defense bill rejects that idea, and would provide minimum 3.7 percent raises for all and higher targeted hikes for some. But the House version of the bill goes along with Bush, making this an issue still to be hashed out in upcoming negotiations.
All of which brings us to the latest indignity ‹ Bush's $9.2 billion military construction request for 2004, which was set a full $1.5 billion below this year's budget on the expectation that Congress, as has become tradition in recent years, would add funding as it drafted the construction appropriations bill.
But Bush's tax cuts have left little elbow room in the 2004 federal budget that is taking shape, and the squeeze is on across the board.
and this story in the Marine Corps Times ("House Republicans dig in against child tax credit for combat troops").
There you have it, folks. Not only does Bush try to pay for a war with a tax cut, but he tries to pay for a tax cut for the rich with . And the Army Times doesn't seem at all appreciative. Kos speculates that these developments might erode thraditional GOP support by the rank-and-file military, and it certainly should be pointed out to question the GOP's alleged competence in national security.
Add it all up, and I believe that Bush's mendacity about the war is going to be much more crippling than his apologists want us to believe. As American soldiers continue to die, and Iraqi "democracy" proves to be elusive at best, Americans are going to ask just how we got into this mess in the first place.
One difference I'll grant between Vietnam and Iraq is that the US involvement in Vietnam was incremental -- from supporting the French, to sending special forces, to sending troops to train the ARVN, to sending security forces for the cadres, and so on and so on. No one president was responsible -- Johnson inherited the involvement from Kennedy but escalated it; Nixon got elected once as a hawk and again with a "secret plan" to end the war (send more troops).
But Iraq is all Bush, baby. He's the once who insisted on war, and nothing but, and right now, when his own evidence didn't support that case. And it's becoming abundantly clear that the hawks who are so enamored of using small deployments to enable frequent -- perhaps constant -- use of the US military didn't have anything close to a plan for the subsequent occupation (hope, as the military maxim goes, is not a plan), and now we're stuck. If troops are still dying come election day next year, Bush had better have some fancy explanations prepared, because I don't think the public will back the sudden "discovery" of a nuclear program in Iran.
I've been remiss in not welcoming Jeff Cooper back to an active blogging schedule. Here's his take on yesterday's end-term flurry of Supreme Court decisions (including the decision overturning sodomy laws). He also links to a Slate article by the brilliant Dahlia Lithwick. Jeff's schedule prevents his from posting as often as he'd like, but he's always worth a read.
Planet Swank notes the passing of former Senator Strom Thurmond, who died yesterday at the age of 100. Thurmond leaves behind a legacy of controversy over some of his views -- including the recent outcry over remarks by Senator Trent Lott that expressed support for Thurmond's segregationist views, and that cost Lott his Senate Majority Leader post. I disagree with much of Thurmond's political and social views. But Thurmond also served in the Senate for 48 years of a political career that spanned seven decades. For his service, if not his views, Planet Swank salutes Thurmond's memory.
Given the chance to lie low and bide their time -- waiting until the Americans were well into a withdrawal before striking -- the Baathist leadership, or what is left of it, chose instead to tip its hand while the American presence in Iraq was strongest. By doing so, these Baathist leaders, a loosely knit network operating in the Sunni triangle northwest of Baghdad, caused U.S. forces to pour into a region that should have been their natural sanctuary. Now they are facing retaliation from the U.S.-led coalition at precisely the time they should be resting and recovering.
If the Baathists had followed the classic insurgency doctrines preached by masters such as Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh, they would have kept a low profile, spreading agitation and propaganda while the U.S. occupation forces waned in strength. They should have waited for a struggling, post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi central government to try to take control in the region before striking. Instead of a weak, fledgling democratic Iraqi regime, the Baathists are facing a seriously aroused U.S. liberation force still at the height of its power and competence.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US attack helicopters led an intensive search north of Baghdad for two US soldiers who appear to have been abudcted from their post along with their Humvee, arms and equipment, a US defense official said.
Blood was found near their post at the flashpoint town of Balad, but no other trace of the two soldiers or the Humvee, said the official on condition of anonymity.
At least one person who is believed to know something about what happened has been detained, the official said.
"It appears that the vehicle and the occupants were somehow abducted," the official said. "Neither has been found at this point. The search is obviously ongoing."
"We're concerned. They had the vehicle, the radio, the weapons, the whole nine yards," the official said.
AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were engaged in search for the soldiers, who were discovered missing on Wednesday, the official said.
Balad, a town on the Tigris north of Baghdad, has been the scene of intensive US sweeps in recent weeks to stamp out attacks by gunmen loyal to the deposed Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein.
Forst off, I think it's dangerously naive to assume these are simply Baathist holdouts, especially considering the recent multiple British casualties in Shia-dominated (and Baathist-unfriendly) southern Iraq. But regardless, it's clear that the guerillas aren't following Gary Anderson's comforting script. Absconding with a fully armed Humm-vee and its two crew is a major escalation from random potshots, drive-by shootings and even RPG attacks. It gives the assailants the potential for even mor devastating surprise strikes by donning the crew's uniforms and using the vehicle. (Anyone who's ever watched The Dirty Dozen could figure out that tactic.) And it's a bold confrontation of "a seriously aroused U.S. liberation force still at the height of its power and competence." Small wonder the US general named to head CENTCOM now says ""we are certainly in for some difficult days ahead" and "Our military involvement there will be certainly a long one." I defy any hawk to explain how this is somehow a positive development.
It's no secret that I opposed Bush's war on Iraq. One concern I voiced was the inevitable difficulty of a prolonged occupation of Iraq. There's an odious assumption among some Bush supporters that anti-war sorts not casualties out of some sort of celebration, or a desire to see our forces "learn a lesson." How vile. To the contrary; I note these developments -- and I haven't even been keeping note of the almost daily attacks on US forces -- out of a sense of disappointment and horror that, as badly as Bush wanted the war, he obviously didn't have a plan to run the country in the aftermath, or the competence to execute any plans he did have. These are real Americans with parents, wives, and children. They're dying. And Bush can't explain what's going on. How anyone can defend this debacle any more is beyond me.
