What If #12

What if the President of the United States made a mistake by cutting funds for purchasing F-22 Raptors(last picture)? If you think that the F-22 is the best plane ever built and nothing can ever defeat it, then you are wrong. Other countries, including some enemies, are already working on new fifth generation planes. A fifth generation aircraft means that they have high-performance airframes, internally carried advanced air-to-air, and air-to-ground weapons, all aspect stealth, Low Probability of Intercept Radar (LPIR), and networks for shared situation awareness. Their advanced highly integrated avionics systems, with on and off-board sensor fusion, free pilots to focus on the task, rather than the different systems that generate the information. Some examples of fifth generation aircraft are the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II, India's Medium Combat Aircraft, China's Shenyang J-XX (first pic), Russia's Sukhoi PAK FA(second pic) and the Sukhoi/HAL FGFA (joint Russian and Indian plane). At the moment, Russia and India are considered allies, but China is a different story. At the moment, they seem to be the biggest threat to the United States when it comes to aeronautics. The new planes all have the same capabilities as the F-22 Raptor has, and if they build way more of their planes than we do, then we will become way outnumbered. At the current date, the United States has only purchased 187 Raptors, with no current plans to produce any more. The plane itself costs $142.6 million per unit with the whole program costing more than $65 billion. Obama just recently signed the new budget without procuring money to Lockheed Martin or Boeing in order to start production of the 187 aircraft. The aircraft cannot help defend the country if they aren't even built yet. The technology on the plane is pretty neat. The radar cross-section of a Raptor appears to be the size of a metal marble on a radar screen. This makes it nearly undetectable to enemy missiles and radar. The newer, but less technological, cheaper version of the F-22 is the F-35(second picture). The F-35 has a new cool Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS) (third picture) that allows the Heads Up Display (HUD) to move with the pilot's head instead of it being static on the front of the plane. The pilot can now look towards an enemies position and gain information or even acquire missile lock and fire. This now allows pilots to fire missiles when they aren't even facing the enemy. So no more Top Gun-like dogfights where you have to line up the enemy, you just simply look at them. The technology of all nations is constantly being upgraded, are we starting to lose the race for air superiority? Obama tried his hardest to shut down the F-22 program, but only succeeded in stopping production of the 187 aircraft that will be purchased. We can only wait and see what happens.

What if #11

What if the war in Iraq had never begun. Would we still be in the other countries fighting for something that doesn't truly effect us. I understand that the best defense is a strong offense, but we are loosing more men than is needed (even though our numbers are nowhere near any other conflict in respect to time/casualty ratio). We are policing a country that will fall apart the second we leave. The job should have been finished long ago. This same situation occurred in Somalia, Vietnam, and various other conflicts. The politics hold back the military so that they cannot finish the job. What if when we entered Iraq and instead of trying to avoid killing civilians, we just carpet bombed the entire area until all resistance stopped. That's what happened in World War II. We didn't bother to avoid bombing civilians in German cities, as a matter of fact, we purposefully attacked civilians in order to demoralize the enemy. Over 14 million Russian civilians died in the continuous bombings and horrible conditions that the Nazis put them through after capture. That number puts the Soviet Union's civilian casualties at around 48 times that of the United States MILITARY casualties (416,800). The Soviet Union's total casualties (24 million) were greater than all other countries' military casualties combined. To win wars, there has to be no mercy. Do you think that Truman thought about mercy when he dropped over 21 kilotons (21,000 tons) of TNT on Nagasaki and over 18 kilotons (18,000 tons) of TNT on Hiroshima? No, I don't think so, we deemed it necessary, and in the long run, it saved many American lives when the Japanese surrendered. We no longer had to invade the Japanese mainland. Admiral "Bull" Halsey was quoted saying, "Before we're done with them, the Japanese language will be spoken only in Hell!" I don't quite agree with his statement, but it shows the way we felt about our operations, it was no-nonsense. They got the job done and moved on. I wonder what happened to our way of thinking?

What If #10

What if Delta Force actually existed? Haha, it's funny because they are real. The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta (1st SFOD-D) has been around since 1977. The group was started when Charles Beckwith became impressed by the British Special Air Service (SAS) after serving as an exchange officer in the 60's. Top military and government figures were also impressed by the idea of a direct action force. The United States government, to this day, denies their existence. They are mainly involved in counter-terrorist or hostage rescue operations. Being an integral part of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), they are under the direct control of the Department of Defense. They have taken part in many operations including: Operation Urgent Fury (invasion of Grenada), Operation Just Cause (invasion of Panama), Operation Heavy Shadow (possible scenario for killing of Pablo Escobar), Operation Desert Storm/Shield (protection of General Schwarzkopf / SCUD missile hunts), Operation Gothic Serpent (capture of Mohammed Farah Aidid / Blackhawk Down), Operation Enduring Freedom (hunting high value targets), Operation Iraqi Freedom (involved in capture/killing of Saddam, Uday, and Qusay Hussein(pic at top w/delta wearing protech helmets at front, house where Qusay was getting hit with TOW missile), and Al-Zarqawi / inserted into Baghdad before invasion) This short list is just a few major operations they took part in. There are many more, some that may even still be active or classified. The most famous of the operations would have to be, in my opinion, Operation Gothic Serpent. It took place in Mogadishu, Somalia, in August - October, 1993. The force was named Task Force Ranger and consisted of 75th Ranger Regiment, Delta Force operators, 160th SOAR(Special Operations Aviation Regiment), Navy SEALs(DEVGRU), Air Force Pararescuemen, and combat controllers from the 24th Speical Tactics Squadron. This operation was made famous by the downing of two UH-60 Blackhawks in downtown Mogadishu in the event that came to be known as The Battle of Mogadishu. This battle is portrayed in the movie Black Hawk Down. Most of the events in the movie are real, except for certain characters who were changed for a more dramatic effect. The Rangers and Delta operators fought through an area of the city known for housing rebels, trying to capture a warlord who had the area under military siege. Two blackhawks were shot down by RPG's that hit the counter torque blades of the helicopters, making them spin out of control. The operation then turned from capturing high value targets to rescuing downed pilots and soldiers. Paul Howe, a delta operator portrayed by Eric Bana in Blackhawk Down, lead a team to rescue the pilot of the second helicopter, but did not make it in time. Two Delta snipers, Randall Shughart and Gary Gordon, who were providing sniper cover from a Blackhawk, volunteered to land and provide assistance to the downed helicopter. The team was allowed to land and fought off crowds of rebels that eventually overwhelmed and killed them both. Their actions saved the life of the pilot Mike Durant. Both Delta operators were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. The pilot was captured but later released by the rebels. Overall, the operation was considered a failure with 18 U.S. soldiers dead, 73 wounded. The Somalian casualties are unknown but believed to be around 1,000 dead, 3,000 injured. The part that pisses me off is the fact that the ground forces requested an AC-130 and APCs to help with the operation, but the Clinton administration deemed the assets to be unnecessary and too high profile. The APCs would have allowed the rescue forces to break through the enemy gunfire to rescue the downed choppers faster and under much greater protection than the HUMVEEs. Clinton's Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, resigned in late 1993 after he was specifically blamed for denying the US Army permission to use the armor units in place in Somalia, units which might have been able to break through to the trapped soldiers earlier in the battle. US political leaders felt it would be bad for the peacekeeping image of the mission if tanks were in country. Osama bin Laden, who was then in Sudan, cited this operation, in particular the US withdrawal from Somalia, as an example of American weakness and vulnerability to an attack. Mark Bowden, who wrote the book(way better than the movie) about Blackhawk Down before it was a movie, had this to say about the gruesome battle, "The parallel with Mogadishu is that gunmen in that battle hid behind walls of civilians and were aware of the restraint of the (Army) Rangers. These gunmen literally shot over the heads of civilians, or between their legs. They used women and children for this. It's mind-boggling, when a ten-year-old is running at your vehicle with an AK-47, do you shoot the kid? Yes, you shoot the kid. You have to survive."

What if #9

What if your entire ruling party died in a plane crash. This leaves you with little left to rule your country. It would be a sad day in your country. Well, all of this happened to Poland not even 7 hours ago. A plane carrying the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and his wife crashed in Russia while traveling to Katyn. Katyn was the site of a massacre of Polish prisoners of war by the Russians in 1940. The plane was full of the President's top cabinet and many war veterans going to Katyn to commemorate the many that died that sad day in 1940. "With a single swipe, the plane crash that killed the President gutted a nation's leadership and silenced some of the most potent human symbols of its tragic and tumultuous history(Stack, NY Times)." The fact that the crash occurred on Russian soil already opens up old wounds between the two countries. Among the 97 killed in the crash were the army chief of staff, the head of the National Security Office, the national bank president, the deputy foreign minister, the deputy parliament speaker, the civil rights commissioner, and members of parliament. The flight was a 26 year old Soviet-designed plane full of iconic Polish figures headed to a Catholic Mass to honor the 70th anniversary of the deaths at Katyn. The flight crashed due to fog on the ground and a hurried Polish aircrew who wanted to land in Smolensk due to time constraints. The Russians warned the pilots to not attempt to land in Smolensk, but the pilots continued anyway. The plane never reached the runway, it flew into trees before the runway, the plane was torn apart and there were no survivors.

What If #8

What if I could take all of my classes when I wanted to take them. There always seems to be a scheduling conflict, or something messing up with permits on the Memphis website. Classes would be much easier if they could be taken on our own time and not when they are scheduled. I am actually taking a history class online over the summer, so hopefully I will be able to do the work when I want to do it. I am sick of going to this 5:30 Biology class, it is too late and I do not usually feel like going. It has become better due to daylight savings time. It is no longer dark when I leave class. Before the time change, it would feel like I was walking out of the Life Science building after three hours of class, it was unbearable. There is too much information to take in. Now I can walk out of the building not feeling like I have wasted the entire day. I only wish that Dr. Martin taught earlier so that we had to pick between failing during the day or barely passing at night. School is very tough this semester, my two labs take up almost as much time as my other classes combined for one day. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays are my long days, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I do not get out of class until after 7, and then on Monday I have Chemistry II lab until 4. I am ready to have some easy classes where I can be out of class on each day by about 12:45.