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Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy -

In this issue:

1. OODA Loop

2. Vickers

3. Hillary

4. Intimidation

5. Georgia

1. OODA Loop. Colonel John Boyd was the father of modern fighter aircraft, fighter training, strategy, thinking and tactics. He created the concept of energy maneuverability. Most importantly, he created the idea of the OODA Loop. OODA means Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. You do this over and over again. If you can complete the cycle quicker than your adversary, in other words get inside his decision loop, you can defeat him no matter what he does, simply because you can make decisions and more importantly corrections faster than your adversary. As Boyd was a fighter pilot in the Pentagon fighting LeMay’s Bomber Generals, during the 1960s, these concepts were first applied to the fighter business. Over the years, they were expanded into maneuver warfare used in Iraq by both Schwarzkopf in 1991 and Franks in 2003. Most recently, it has been used by Petraeus as part of his surge strategy and execution. A lot of people who have been in the military have some familiarity with the concepts and are applying them in the outside world. Last week, it looked like the McCain Campaign, headed up by the old Naval Fighter Pilot John McCain, got inside Obama’s OODA Loop with a couple of ads. The first ad compared Obama to a rock star, not unlike Paris Hilton. The second, released a day or two later, was entitled The One, painted Obama as the Chosen, included the Obama Presidential Seal and Charlton Heston as Moses. The ad ended with the question “But can he lead?” Obama, his campaign, his toadies in the drive-by media, and other leftists howled with screams of pain. Obama was at his humorless worst, even though they trotted out a very quick, but whiney response. For a little while, the McCain campaign was working well inside the OODA Loop of the Obama campaign – and it was funny, effective and powerful. If they can do more of this, do it regularly, when and where they choose to do it, Obama and the democrats are toast in November. Colonel Boyd passed away in 1997 and is buried at Arlington. You can find a superb essay on Boyd and his application to current combat in Iraq on the Eject! Eject! Eject! Under the title of Forty Second Boyd and the Big Picture, January 1, 2008. http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000172.html

2. Vickers. One of the little games democrats have been playing for years and years is running faker conservatives during contested primaries, splitting the vote, winning the primary, and laying down during the campaign during the general election and handing the seat to the democrats. The technique always has a well funded unknown showing up saying all the right conservative things. They usually run a guy in a closely contested primary, where money is important and the ability to win a plurality of votes in a 3-5 way split. This primary season here in Alaska has one of these guys showing up in the Republican senatorial campaign. Ted Stevens (R, AK) is running against Dave Cuddy, a local banker in the state primary August 26. Stevens defeated Cuddy fairly handily last in 1996. A new guy showed up named Vic Vickers. He has around $750,000 available for his campaign. He has been saying all the right things regarding ethics, controlling of spending, and doing the right thing in Washington DC. Come to find out that he moved into Alaska last January and immediately registered as a Republican. Local research into him found that he was a lifelong democrat. One of the local talk show guys, Eddie Burke, got him on the air and questioned him a while. Eddie got some interesting answers. For instance, he believes that Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens are the best SCOTUS justices. He gave the standard leftist responses to the rest of the questions. I don’t think he is going to do too well in the primary. But be forewarned, if it can happen here and in Arizona, it can then also happen in your state. Why? Because winning a primary is far cheaper than winning a general election campaign. It is a great way to leverage precious campaign cash and steal a hotly contested seat.

3. Hillary. With the democrat convention in Denver only a few weeks away, the Hillary and Obama campaigns are far from an agreement on how the convention will be orchestrated. The Obama campaign does not want to hold a floor vote for the nomination, as it will demonstrate just how close the primary campaign really was. It will not demonstrate to the rest of the country that Obama was not the Chosen by the many states, but selected by the party insiders, it will undermine his Potemkin village appearance of inevitability. The Hillary campaign is rightfully demanding a floor vote, a roll call of the states as we see every national convention. Over the course of the last week or two, both sides have been releasing damaging memos on the other side. Add to this, the growing realization that the drive-by media sat on their knowledge of the John Edwards affair, and did not report the story so that the Hillary vote would be split two ways, and you now have the Clinton campaign whining that they would have won the Iowa primary had Edwards’ affair be known at the time (which it most certainly was to reporters). I am not all that impressed, as nobody but nobody plays politics dirtier than the Clintons, and had they had the information about Edwards, and thought it would have helped them, they most certainly would have released the information to the general public. So their dirty tricks machine was either incompetent and didn’t know, or it did know about the affair, and chose not to use it for their own self-serving reasons. Either way, this is going to be a fun convention. Bring your popcorn.

4. Intimidation. Nothing like a little threat via the mail to fire up conservatives. Ed Morrissey in Hot Air Friday wrote about a threatening letter to be sent to over 10,000 large dollar right wing donors. The letter is an attempt to head off formation of right wing 527 groups in response to Soros-funded 527s working this election. The letter will reportedly promise exposure, left wing investigators digging through their private lives, and other forms of harassment should the targets decide to participate in democracy this campaign season. Bring it on.

5. Georgia. Russian tanks rolled into the Republic of Georgia over the weekend. The attack, over a division in size, was nicely timed to coincide with the start of the Beijing Olympics over the weekend. Georgia is a US ally, with troops in Iraq. The attack was justified on just as thin grounds as the invasion of the Sudetenland 70 years ago. Based on the numbers of tanks involved, planning must have been under way for several months prior to the invasion. This attack has two goals: The first is control of an oil pipeline into Europe through Georgia; second, it is intended to intimidate every single former Soviet Socialist Republic that left the fold in 1991. If Putin can roll the tanks through Georgia without anyone in the West doing anything about it, he can roll tanks into any other nation (except China) bordering it. Control of the pipeline will keep Europe from doing anything or supporting any military action against Russia. The political response to the invasion was predictable, with the typical leftists blaming everything on the Bush administration. John McCain immediately blasted the action in very harsh terms. Obama blamed it on the Bush administration, saying we didn’t talk enough with the Russians. After French President Sarkozy brokered a cease fire, Obama spokesmen took credit for the announcement, thanking the French President for ding what Obama asked them to do. The only thing Obama didn’t do was to ask how things are in Atlanta, like a democrat candidate for US Senate did over the weekend. This is going to be pretty ugly before it gets any better. Next up to bat for Putin is the Ukraine.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the Town Hall Conservative group.