The USAF Tanker: The Headache Ends Tonight (Sort of)

In a matter of hours, the Pentagon will announce the winner of the KC-135 replacement. The project officially started a decade ago,during which several high profile ethics investigations into Boeing were launched, several individuals involved in the bid were jailed, Boeing employees were sacked, the CEO of Boeing resigned, and EADS won the bid in a 2008 upset only to have the win overturned by the GSA.

I for one, am hoping for EADS' KC-30 (the original KC-45) to win the competition.

Update: Boeing is the winner of the KC-135 Replacement contract

Now comes the fun part, EADS is going to appeal the decision, and over the next six months, their appeal will be considered (and eventually rejected). As compensation, I am willing to wager that the KC-30 will be considered as a KC-10 (the DC-10 based tanker) replacement. That order, however, will be for a paltry 60 aircraft. Had the KC-30 won this competition, Boeing would have likely pitched a KC-777 as a KC-10 replacement, which they would have likely won.

Still, this outcome is quite a surprise.

Qadaffi, a Man on Fire

Show your friends a video of Colonel Qaddafi going off on one of his many rants or tirades and ask them the first word that comes to mind. I would wager that a significant number of those responses would involved or be the word “buffoon.”

I am here to tell you to stay away from that word. Go beyond the rhetoric, the designer sunglasses, his busty blonde nurse and his attempts to convert supermodels to Islam. Colonel Qaddafi, for all of his unique qualities and eccentricities may come off as a buffoon, yet he is anything but. Qaddafi is the longest ruling contemporary leader. He has seen 8 American Presidents (from Nixon to Obama), 5 Soviet General Secretaries, 4 Saudi Kings and 3 Egyptian and Russian Presidents come and go during his time. He witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of the United States as the world’s sole superpower and is now witnessing the rise of China. He has survived his fair share of assassination attempts, both internal and external. And now, he faces his greatest internal threat yet.

His time may be running out, but do not write him off just yet. Qaddafi is as politically astute as he is eccentric. He is politically and ideologically malleable, which has kept him relevant while other leaders have been voted out and overthrown. While he remains firmly entrenched in a political and diplomatic third way and non-aligned, he also hopped around ideologically, first as a pan-Arabist intent on joining, and then emulating Syria and Egypt’s United Arab Republic atthe peak of the Arab Socialist movement, then as that movement lost steam, he jumped ship and became a proponent of pan-Islamism. Recently, seeing opportunity to the south, Qaddafi reframed himself as a pan-African leader, eventually being appointed to the chair of the African Union, the first to come from an Arab country[i]. He even took the time, back in the mid-1970s, to put his ideas to paper in his aptly named Green Book, which he still refers to whenever given the opportunity.

Internally, he squelched internal division caused by tribal rivalries in order to strengthen his power base and put forth a remarkably progressive social agenda, though much of that is being undone as this is written. Libya today is certainly not the Libya of yesteryear. It has among the highest standards of living, median income, life expectancies, and literacy rates in Africa. Libya, at least ostensibly, is socially progressive. Since the peak of his radicalism in the 1980s, which saw Libya become a training ground and bank for radical movements the world over, from the Irish Republican Army to the Red Army Faction, he has moderated – tremendously, all but apologizing for and paying reparation to Pan Am 103 and UTA 772 victims, ending his WMD program, reestablishing diplomatic relations with the United States and strengthening ties with the European Union, all while maintaining his unique brand of national leadership.

As Libya approaches the fine line that separates failing states and failed states, and as his forces commit further attrocities against his people, as members of the armed forces and foreign representatives begin to defect, one must consider Colonel Qaddafi’s past. He has ruled Libya for his entire adult life, and, through his peculiar cult of personality, has become as much a part of the country as the country has become a part of him. Colonel Qaddafi may as well claim the infamous line "L'État, c'est moi."

Image Credit:
blatantnews.com (License)

[i] The Organization for African Unity, the African Union’s predecessor had several Arab leaders as chairmen, including Gamal Abdel Nasser

Maglev, uninvited guest at the High Speed Rail party

Maglev is an uninvited guest to the high speed rail party. Do not let the flashy videos and cool lines of the Maglev fool you, it gives you very little more than conventional high speed rail does for two to three times more. Maglev in America is a disaster in the making, and exactly what opponents to high speed rail want: a shiny expensive train that bankrupts its operators. Beyond its cost, Maglev's unique design makes it un-interoperable with conventional rail, making it far less flexible than its steel wheeled counterparts.

There is no denying that Maglev is incredible technology. It is clean, safe, efficient and by far the fastest land based transportation available. However Maglev is an unproven technology that risks costing high speed rail in America tremendous political capital. Though development of Maglev technology goes back over half of a century, there is only one high speed maglev in service today, the Shanghai Maglev train running 19 miles from Shanghai's Pudong Airport to just outside downtown Shanghai. Hailed as the first part of a bigger Maglev network, its expansion was quietly shelved three years ago in favor of a more cost effective alternative. Though far cleaner than air, bus or car, Maglev does not make any significant improvements in efficiency or emissions.

Therein lies one of Maglev's greatest weaknesses: its cost. For a corridor such as the densely populated Northeast Corridor of the United States, Maglev costs well over 100 million dollars per mile, conventional high speed rail on the other hands costs between two-thirds and half that amount. With limited funding available for the construction of new high speed rail lines, Maglev would give American taxpayers less bang for their buck. Now let me monetize that. For a DC-Boston high speed rail line, assuming a distance of 450 miles, Maglev would cost well over 55 billion dollars (assuming 120 million dollars as the minimum price per mile, including new bridges and tunnels). Conventional high speed rail would cost between 22.5 and 30 billion dollars. Both are gargantuan expenditures, however, with 37.5 billion dollars saved, the line could be extended well past Atlanta (another 620 miles, not to mention that construction costs would be far lower along the less densely populated I-85 corridor).

Even the folks at Desert Xpress abandoned their ambitions (and ill thought out plan) to build a Maglev from Victorville, CA to Las Vegas, NV, instead deciding to focus on building a conventional high speed line that would eventually connect to the California High Speed Rail (CAHSR). Beyond the fact that there is virtually no market for Victorville to Las Vegas, the Desert Xpress builders realized that without interoperability with the much bigger CAHSR, they would be dead in the water. (Seriously, why drive three hours to Victorville only to get on a train for 45 minutes? Why not just build the line to Anaheim or Los Angeles?)

Maglev is completely inoperable with existing rail lines. Conventional trains run on steel wheels on steel rails, the same as the rails that crisscross the country today. Maglev operates on (or floats on or around) a fixed guideway. If Maglevs were to be built in the United States, they would be unable to operated on conventional rail lines if demand necessitated, nor would they be able to be moved to other Maglev corridors if needed without incredibly expensive connector tracks. (Just for reference's sake, a high speed train could easily be moved from New York to Los Angeles over conventional tracks, a Maglev would need to be disassembled, transported across the country by truck or rail and then be reassembled on the other line).

There is a silver lining in all of this. Maglev does have a future, if the funding can be found, as a downtown to airport shuttle as Shanghai has discovered. Maglev's rapid acceleration and high speed would connect far flung airports to city downtowns in record speed. The current circuitous route from Manhattan to New York's Kennedy Airport on the Long Island Railroad to the AirTrain could be replaced or supplemented by a direct link using a mix of elevated and underground maglev. The 18 mile trip from Kennedy Airport to a transit hub in Manhattan (either Penn Station or Grand Central Terminal) would take under fifteen minutes. Other cities, including Washington, D.C. with its far flung Dulles Airport would stand to benefit from a fast link from downtown.

But really Maglev, you need to go, you're stealing High Speed Rail's thunder.

Photo Credit

(1) User Alex Needham on en.wikipedia

(2) My own work

Bahrain, in a nutshell.

The mass protests in Bahrain are not all that we think they are. After the fall of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and ensuing protests in Libya, Jordan, and Yemen, we have become accustomed to the relatively similar narrative of popular unrest fueled by poor employment prospects, autocratic governments led by corrupt, selfish and nepotist leaders and a cry for equity through representative government.

That narrative holds some water in the case of Bahrain, however, there are several key factors that are overlooked or misunderstood in current discussions. The case of Bahrain holds a confessional dimension that does not exist in the case of Libya, Yemen, Egypt, and Tunisia; in addition there is a long history of clashes between Bahrain's Shi'a majority and the ruling family.

First, Bahrain's Shi'a majority is led by the Sunni al Khalifa clan, whose roots lie in Kuwait and Qatar. Their ascendancy to the throne in 1820 was made possible not by their ability to marshall their forces in Bahrain, but by treaties signed with the British, eventually becoming a British protectorate and colony.

Second, the ruling al Khalifa family has stayed in power by empowering its Sunni constituency while keeping the Shi'a in a general state of economic and political destitution. Formal segregation exists with the Shi'a restricted from many jobs, neighborhoods and opportunities that are reserved for Sunnis and allies of the royal family.

Third, though a largely stable and economically successful country, street violence is nothing new to Bahrain. Going back four decades, the Shi'a have demonstrated in the streets to protest the conditions they have been subjected to. When street protests erupted in 1973 and 1974, Emir Isa bin Salman al Khalifa, the ruler of Bahrain, dissolved the elected National Assembly and enacted the State Security Law of 1974, giving him carte blanche to prosecute what he saw as subversive elements. The Iranian Revolution only exacerbated the situation, as Emir Isa linked Shi'a opposition to Iranian supported terrorist organizations including Hezbollah. Neighboring Arab nations supported the government's crackdown, fearing their own Shi'a majorities would eventually rise up. It is important to note that clashes between the Shi'a and the al-Khalifa clan are exactly that - anti-government protests, and not anti-Sunni protests.

Fourth, Bahrain's Shi'a are disappointed with their experience with representative government since the reestablishment of the National Assembly in 2001. Initially promised that the Council of Representatives, the elected house of the National Assembly, would be the more powerful house, King Hamad reneged on his promise when he realized how powerful the Shi'a would be in such an assembly. Since the 2006 elections (Shi'a parties boycotted the 2002 election after King Hamad's undermining of the National Assembly), the Shi'a Islamist al Wefaq party has dominated elections, winning 17 out of 40 seats in 2006 elections and 18 out of 40 seats in the 2010 elections. These results do not demonstrate their real support however, as more than half of voters cast ballots for al Wefaq candidates, however due to gerrymandering, al Wefaq's representation remains below the 21 seats needed for a majority, though they did have alliances with Sunni liberal prior to the dissolution of the National Assembly.

What does this all mean? For one, it gives validity to Vali Nasr's assertion that there is a Shi'a revival in the Middle East (A book certainly worth reading). The protests in Bahrain also show that discontent with the direction of the country is not only limited to Shi'a, as there is also considerable Sunni participation in the protests. And the good news for the United States? While Bahrain's Shi'a are confessionally linked to Iran's Shi'a, Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has a far greater following. Though certainly not an American ally, Ayatollah Sistani's moderation and pragmatism led to Iraqi Shi'a participation in politics rather than violence (though the younger firebrand Moqtada al-Sadar would wish to see otherwise). He also disagrees with an Iranian style clerical government and opposes clerical involvement in politics.

In the end, Bahrain's neighbors stand to lose more than the United States, particularly if (or when) the protests succeed in overthrowing the royal family.

The South will not be rising again. Get over it.

There are few things that divide people are much as the issue of the Confederacy's place in American history. Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of Jefferson Davis' inauguration as President of the Confederate States of America. The city of Montgomery Alabama celebrated the historic event by hosting this reenactment. It seems that quite a few folks took this event (too) seriously.

In case any of you forgot what the Civil War was about, I will take the time to remind you: THE SOUTH WANTED TO KEEP SLAVES. All these arguments about "States' Rights" and "Northern Aggression" are irrelevant.

As for a government for the people, by the people? It's about as true as the assertion that large numbers of Black soldiers served in the Confederate Army. The Confederate Army

was made up of poor, slaveless southern Whites. Wealthy landowners, industrialists and politicians were exempted from military service, though some chose to serve. If by "The People" one means the wealthy landed class, then sure, the Confederacy was for "The People."

The quote that really got my attention was Kelley Barrow's assertion that "the people of the confederacy have been forced to the back of the bus" in reference to Rosa Park's daring decision to not give up her seat and sit at the front of the bus. It almost sounds like Nathaniel Bedford Forrest made that statement.

Photo Credit: Mark Calendine

A first post, a pointless post.

Rather than start by making a substantive post about a real issue, I think we ought to address how mindless our news coverage is from time to time.

So I'll feed in to it:

Apparently, Fox News, by way of British tabloid The Sun, felt it was important enough to discuss a new expedition to find the Loch Ness Monster. Unfortunately for Fox News, they failed to add one key fact to The Sun's story: The Loch Ness photographs were proven to be a hoax in 1994.

Running stories by tabloids is nothing new for Fox though: last November Fox News reported that an increasingly frustrated Barack Obama was sending 75,000 word ranting emails to his supporters. The source was none other than, you guessed it, The Onion. Fox News was smart enough to remove that story.

Apparently, no one at Fox knows how to "use the Google."