01 February 2008

Hellfire



I am shaken this morning by the realization that the Senators apparently now really like one another. I am a little disappointed that the male and female Democratic frontrunners were so chummy at the debate last night, and even more shaken when I realize that the female frontrunner also knocked back a couple whiskeys with the Republic frontrunner before all this started last year.

I would hate to think that civility is going to break out, and the public discourse is going to be about issues. At least for now; I know the knife is waiting up someone's sleeve.

With no spectacular ugliness to address domestically, was forced to read down past the fold on the paper this morning, or at least where the fold would have been if the paper was not a digital copy on the flat-screen.

Hellfire. They bagged a senior al Qaida leader in the tribal area of Waziristan with one of those handy little missiles fired from a Predator drone. It is good news, though not a pivot point, and it provides some context for some very strange events of the last week that I have allowed to remain in the static of the public buffoonery attending the succession to the White House.

I worked for a guy years ago whose father killed himself when he was a kid. Tragic story. He was raised by his Grandfather, a stern old Naval officer of the Old School who became his legal guardian.

He was subjected to the same superior mentoring that undoubtedly contributed to his father's decision to do away with himself.

The collected emotional wreckage had a remarkable resonance down through the years, and touched many people in odd ways as the years passed.

I am not one to be overly introspective about other people's issues, particularly the quest for unconditional affection and self-worth. Still, I am a fairly astute observer of plain and evident fact. I'll tell you about it sometime over cocktails.

Smith was the last name, or at least close enough that it makes no difference, and the point is not the last name but the Grandfather's first three, in the ancient tradition best exemplified by George Herman Walker Bush.

I said the old Naval officer was old school. He was a graduate of the Academy at Annapolis, and he would have reported as “Smith, H.F.D.”

In the way of the military, his peers did the re-mix. Based on his stern and resolute personality, he was dubbed “Hellfire and Damnation” Smith, which is certainly something that would be formidable enough in a social situation, but as a direct report would probably be an exercise in sheer terror.

Anyway, the ripples of his personality were such that the reflections of Hellfire affected many long after he was in his grave. The chaos theory holds that the beating of a butterfly's wing on some other continent can start a cascade of events that can tip mountains.

I could not help but think of that when I heard that the Libyan Abu Laith al-Libi was bagged with a Hellfire missile late yesterday.

The successful execution of a remotely guided missile strike from a remotely controlled drone is nothing new, if that is what it was. Those that think of such things on the conceptual level feel unease when they think about them as robots. I was in the Pentagon when the operational requirement was stated for an autonomous reconnaissance capability, and the General Atomics corporation was very helpful in providing their Predator concept vehicle to meet the need.

I was in the Fleet when the Predator was introduced into the experimental inventory, flying out of a remote field on an island off Southern California t see what it might do.

I was somewhere else when the decision was made that reconnaissance was not enough. The drone was rugged enough that a couple missiles could be slung under the elegantly slim wings. The combination provided the advantage of unmanned stealth reconnaissance with a kill capability, and altogether new concept for intelligence.

It was a great idea. The concept was first revealed to the public in a strike in Yemen, when a bad guy was engaged with some of his buddies as he sped down a road in the Empty Quarter. The Hellfire missile is a neat piece of work. It comes in a variety of models, but in the latest version, weighs only about a hundred pounds and is seven inches in diameter and 64 inches long. Compact. Elegant. Deadly.

The latest models feature dual warheads that can defeat reactive armor, electro-optical countermeasures hardening and feature a semi-active laser seeker. The combination of Hellfire's precision guidance and fire-and-forget capability for targeting gives you a lot of flexibility, particularly if someone allows you to fly them over sovereign territory that a Bad Guy thinks is secure.

The attack apparently occurred early Tuesday, and struck a house in Khushali Torikel, a village about six miles from the Afghan border.

Libi was a murderer, and a thug.

He was a tall man, like Osama, but heavily built. His particular claim to fame of late had been the organization of the suicide bombing at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan during the visit of Vice President Cheney a year ago this month. The official entourage was unharmed, though twenty-three died near the gate.

That is the real story here, the one that isn't. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Mike Hayden took a little unannounced trip last week that was noted in the press. Both of those men's lives have rippled across mine in the past, changing my course down the rapids. They visited embattled Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad, and according to what was reported at the time, asked for increased covert operations presence in the Sovereign Tribal areas.

The Public pronouncement at the time was that the former general rebuffed the Americans, saying he would not permit American boots on Pakistani soil.

He is in a bit of an awkward position these days, particularly since the assassins of Benazir Bhutto live in the lawless areas.

Based on the ripples from the detonation this morning, there may be no foreign boots on the ground in Waziristan, and no pilot in an aircraft above it.

I have no first hand knowledge, of course, but it would certainly appear that there is an exception for robots, and that is an interesting development indeed. Of course, there will be ripples, and there could be hell to pay.

Copyight 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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