Sniper Assistant First Grade actually isn’t such a great job - not as exciting as the recruitment officer made it sound like …

This is not about terrorist propaganda, this is not about free speech, this is not about radicalizing the public - it’s about the truth.

American politicians, American media and most parts of the so called American public simply "sanitize" reality to they don’t have to face the ugly truth: their own soldiers and mostly innocent people die in this stupid war on terror.

Don’t look away! This is your war. You decided to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - now stand up to it and face the blood.

This is the 21st century - you won’t be able to hide such videos and censor images - like the return of your own dead soldiers.

But America has learned from the Vietnam experience - and all side are making HUGE efforts to keep the TV screens clean. Because shocking images can make people change their minds - but cool 3D animations with heroic videos - but no blood or gut hanging out - do not offend …

The Red Cross has become the modern symbol for help in times of need. Especially in wartime the Red Cross simply tries to help, no matter how is in need.

I am still fascinated that the Red Cross still is a voluntary and PRIVATE organization, who does not rely on governments or other big international institutions like the UN to do it’s job.

It’s the largest humanitarian movement and it has branches all over the world. And as caretaker of the famous Geneva Conventions (Hello Mr Bush?!) they have tried to civilize war and set some rules how to deal with the wounded, captured and dead while madness is rampaging. 

I actually find the additional title "Red Crescent" a bit stupid - but I don’t really care about labels as long as it HELPS someone somewhere …

So if you usually don’t donate any money or time to any movement or organization - you should at least consider to support the Red Cross, because it’s still one of the best and certainly the biggest. Have a look where they are active!

More? Red Cross @ Wikipedia

It is amazing how much "stuff" modern soldiers carry around with them - apart from their most basic instruments and clothing.

Body Armor plus huge amounts or high tech equipment.

Sometimes when I watch videos from Afghanistan and Iraq - where heavy western soldiers "crawl" beside lightly equipped Afghan or Iraqi troops - I wonder if this just makes "our" boys bigger targets?

Looking at cool guns can be pretty exciting.

Looking at the effects of cool guns on other people can be pretty scary. 

Overall handguns are not made to protect people, but shot them. A bullet does not protect, but injure and kill.

Nevermind the Soviet voiceover.

Some gun camera footage from FW-190 attacks.

Some dramatic German Wochenschau Propaganda featuring the FW-190 in action.

The FW-190 was one of the primary German fighters during WWII and served on all fronts in many different combat roles.

The Airwar over Germany was a bloody mess - and the FW-190 was used to destroy American and British bombers. At that time airwar was almost close combat - at least compared to today’s long range missile and radar warfare.

Overall there is nothing romantic about the “good old days”, but at least the pilots had a chance to see their enemy they engaged.

On the 1st April 1918 the RAF was founded to defend King and Country - and what a great job they did so far.

The RAF most iconic machine - the Supermarine Spitfire.

It’s most controversial Commander Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris - who ordered the fire bombing of Dresden and Hamburg.

Today’s coolest jet - the Eurofighter Typhoon (yeah I know this one has German insignia - couldn’t find a good image with RAF ones).

More? RAF Homepage (for airforce nerds - visit the official Timeline) and Wikipedia entry -

Germany still has an odd relationship to anything military, because of it’s Nazi past. Germany’s Bundeswehr is finally an active army again - supporting NATO and the UN in peace missions. It took Germany over 50 years to allow military involvement OUTSIDE of Germany.

The Bundeswehr is more and more becoming a professional army - and now that bullets are flying again the military leadership would like to have the same gadgets and gimmicks all other armies have: medals.

There are already some medals, but these are campaign medals which a soldier gets automatically - if he has been brave or not. So the German Generals would like to reintroduce the Iron Cross that has been the medal for valor for a long time.

But because it smacks of militarism and Nazis our politicians go bonkers and refuse that little piece of metal. Sometimes political correctness is simply idiotic. Germany needs to accept it’s bad spots, but also reintegrate the military in a normal and positive way into society. The least thing you can do for young man brave enough to risk their necks for everybody is to give them a nice medal to honor their achievements …

During WWII the British Government had a keen eye on the supply of tobacco, milk, sugar, coffee and tea (of course). These were more essential for moral than many other goods - a Brit can do without a home (and sleep in the subway), but he needs his fags and tea with creme to carry on!

Isn’t it strange that in the most catastrophic situations the lack of little things annoy us more than the loss of King or Country?

In all our cultures we have developed a stupid admiration for soldiers killed in combat. We call them Heroes - and give them medals posthumously and erect statues for them. This won’t save them - it only makes us fell better for sending them to death for some stupid cause.

Funny enough: we don’t have any nice words, medals or statues for civilians who were also killed (by soldiers) in a war. We consider them simply sad losses, collateral damage or simply numbers. No medals for them and no heroic tales about these poor people.

Militarism is a group psychosis to justify killing each other and give soldiers an incentive and reason to end a strangers life for abstract goals like nationalism, racism or simply greed of the ruling classes.

This is one odd picture: the Russians have resumed their long-range bomber flights - which they stopped in the 1990’s because the country and their military was broke. Here you see a Tupolew Tu-95 followed by a hypermodern American F-22 Raptor. The first TU-95 flew 1953 (!!!) and the F-22 have just entered the service (2005).

Ten years in military technology is a long time, twenty years are a generation - but fifty years …

But don’t be fooled: the first mighty B-52 bombers entered American service 1955 - and they upgraded models are still killing people today. To anyone without modern missiles or AA guns such an ‘old’ machine is still deadly.

Before radar and heat seeking missiles air war was crude and rather brutal. Planes and balloons were first only used to observe ground movements.

Flying in these primitive machines was very cold and nauseating, because of the fumes.

Than pilots started to shoot at each others with their pistols, which started the aerial arms race.

Aerial bombardments started with hand grenades and even bricks. The first bombs were dropped by hand - usually by the observer - who often operated the second machine to the rear.

Many crews didn’t have parachutes in the beginning - but most of them would not have been able to jump anyway. Their planes didn’t offer any protection from enemy machine gun fire or burning engines or fuel, so they were often killed after a serious hit.

We humans do really stupid stuff to kill each other.

Most people think that the atomic holocaust has gone away. Quite to the contrary. The nuclear powers have still way too many big crackers - so much firepower to kill us all several times over.

Russia and the USA both are planning to update their nuclear arsenal. China, Pakistan and India are new powers and constantly building new nukes. France and Britain certainly will upgrade their arsenal sometime.

Some of the nukes in service range from modern land- and submarine-based ICBM warheads to bombs dropped from planes and smaller so called tactical nukes.

Both Russia and the US have many old nukes and delivery system, so I don’t think that all 20.000 of them are operational. And modern ICBM carry several warheads at once.

China has LESS than 500 nukes  so far.

I didn’t include North Korea, because I couldn’t find any ‘good’ numbers. But I doubt they have more than 10-20.

This may sound cynical: I would say that up to 100 warheads for smaller nuclear powers are ‘understandable’ as a deterrent. Everything over 500 is madness. The US and Russia (plus China and India) as huge countries and powers should be ‘happy’ with about 2000 each …

You also have to understand that keeping up an atomic force costs a lot of money: security, training, inspections and plus warning and delivery systems.

Battleships used to rule the world. The British Empire relied on it’s ability to ‘project power’ with it’s mighty fleet to almost any corner of this planet.

But the floating fortresses became endangered with the invention of the Submarine, Torpedo, and the Airplane. Much cheaper and smaller technologies that could kill such a huge metal beast with a single blow.

Today guided missiles are the ultimate menace to ships. That is why some countries resort to building much smaller and cheaper ships. Big guns are still there, but they are replaced by more and more missiles.

From BBC on this Day:

The mission became popularly known as the Dambusters raid, and was immortalized in a 1954 war film. It was one of the most famous air operations of World War II. Casualties for the raid were high.

Eight of the original 19 Lancaster bombers were damaged or shot down, and of the 133 aircrew, 53 were killed and three captured. On the ground, too, almost 1,300 people were killed, including 749 Ukrainian prisoners of war based in a camp just below the Eder dam.

The Möhne and Eder reservoirs poured about 330 million tons of water into the western Ruhr valley. The flood waters spread for about 50 miles (80km) from the source. The spectacular, daring nature of the raid was a significant boost to British morale. But militarily, it was a failure. The squadron failed to breach the Sorpe dam; and the disruption to the German war production was minimal. Water supply in the Ruhr valley was back to original levels six weeks later.

The aircrew, however, became famous as war heroes, and the leader of the raid, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, was awarded the Victoria Cross. He died less than 18 months later, shot down at the age of 26 in September 1944.

Actually many air raids hardly stopped German war production and many raids hit only the prisoners, because they usually were unable to hide in shelters. But the loss of material and airmen for the Americans and British was incredible.

As a finale note - the Dambuster theme from the movie, which is part of the British war culture:

More? documentary about the development of the special bomb and Wikipedia entry

No battle plan survives any contact with politicians. 

Appeasing public opinion, winning a battle and winning the war are three very different things. Usually all three are lost while trying to win all three objectives.

Not to speak of the hearts & minds of the natives you try to liberate …

Watch this animation sponsored by American scientists to explain why any mini-nukes are pretty useless against the Iranian research facilities. Sometimes firepower doesn’t solve everything.

The pilot of the Enola Gay - who dropped the first atom bomb - has died (BBC News article). The old warriors of Warld War II are slowly vanishing from society, living memory becomes history.

Tibbet was always very public about his big mission.

More? Interview video (YouTube) and another interview (Guardian.uk)

The ‘invention’ - the AK-47

The original German Sturmgewehr

Usually I am don’t give a peep about nationalistic sentiments - but it just drives me nuts, when history gets abused. Mr Kalashnikov recently bragged about his invention and how much American soldiers loved his AK-47. Well, I am no weapons expert, but you can read about the AK-47 reliability in any recent war reports. The American M-16 never seems so popular - since it has hardly improved since it was introduced 30 years ago.

BUT … the AK47 is a perfect of the German Sturmgewehr 44, which was introduced in the last battles at the eastern front and deeply impressed the Soviets. No surprise they endorsed further developments of these fast firing attack weapons and even adapted their infantry doctrines to reflect this.

I love the irony: a flying human carries the birds who symbolize peace, but are now both used to fly for the great european war. Life is … weird!

I think every politician should do some body bag practice before sending troops to their death.

After a few female soldiers have been killed in Iraq the US discusses if and how woman can be protected from combat - because they are not supposed to fight at the frontline.

Although it may sound cynical: but woman should have the right to die for their country - and they will anyway, since modern warfare no longer works in the old terms of an ‘unsafe’ frontline here and a ’safe’ support area back there.

The Soviet army had no problems sending woman to fight, neither does Israel.

Sandhurst is the modern extension of old British military traditions: transforming young people into Cadets and Officers. But Sandhurst is not just a British affair - it trains soldiers from many different nations. Plus it offers many academic courses outside the military curriculum. Very civilized.

More? Wikipedia

Don’t you love blame games?

Remember poor Lyndie England. Is she a great scapegoat, a brave soldier or just a mislead soul in a unjust war?

Since I am a sort of draft dodger I can’t relate to people who go to the military. Plus I don’t know how I would behave in a situation like Iraq, Vietnam or Afghanistan.

I once read that old British military tradition tried to evoke ‘presence of mind’ in their soldiers. This presence of mind seems clearly missing in this case and many others we read about during the War on Terror.

But I wonder, how anyone can stay present with death, torture, mayhem and human chaos around them? Isn’t that the perfect situation to close down anything left human inside of you and go robotic? Just following orders?

Soldiers should never be left alone, human should never be left alone. We are social animals and we need others to guide us in difficult situations … one sane mind can stop an insane crowd … sometimes …

Erwin Rommel was always considered one of the ‘good’ Germans of WWII. He was a brilliant tactician, loved by his soldiers and respected by his enemies. He was forced to commit suicide, because he was suspected to plot against Hitler.

Overall the German military establishment utterly failed to stop Hitler in it’s tracks. They are - with a very few exception - a classical bunch of non-thinking military figures. Just following orders!

Although it might weaken a military, but a modern country needs ‘thinking soldiers’, critical of their leaders, critical about war and the reasons for it. No fatherland, no motherland, no religion, no dogma is worth dying for.

You should put your life for a good reason on the line.

I just don’t get it. So many people are into Nazi porn, buying Hitler’s dinner plates, Wehrmacht medals or old German Helmets. I understand the fascination for weapons - but not for a perverse political dogma that ruined Europe.