Shark

Kelly Beth, Wasabi!!!! Wanna go to lunch?! Good Soosh here in SoCal and Kokoro's at El Snore is great. Shark

Ensure you have a sufficient bank account before starting your career as a professional skydiver.

Got 'em, love 'em!

Or downsize! ...or pack your own!

4 hours ago.

Shark, CCR 2113/CCS 1242

Great story (or myth.) Tomorrow blows. We only had a few hours of decent wind before the 25mph gusts. Anyway, your Level 6 was pretty good even though you tried to accomplish Level 8 objectives by tumbling. Next time Marie (dippymoo) wants a piece of you. Yep, without you completing your AFF today we were without beer.

You might want to review your SIM again. USPA A-license holders who have not made a freefall skydive within— 1. 60 days: should make at least one jump under the supervision of a currently rated USPA instructional rating holder until demonstrating altitude awareness, freefall control on all axes, tracking, and canopy skills sufficient for safely jumping in groups. 2. 90 days: should make at least one jump beginning in Category D with a USPA AFF Instructor or in Category B with a USPA IAD Static-Line, or Tandem Instructor before proceeding to unsupervised freefall.

I probably would have asked YOU that question before I stamped your Proficeincy Card.

I try to have fun regardless of who I'm jumping with! Don't limit yourself. Most of the people I jump with have never jumped before or are students. Besides, I can always twist someone's arm to go to the tunnel.

Rogue state = Canuckistan

....and earned a Silver medal.

What does the WTC have to do with Iraq? Wendy W. Missile Defense and State Sponsorship of Terrorism By Peter H. Huessy In 1992, John Deutch, the future Clinton era CIA and defense official wrote in Foreign Affairs that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had been much closer to securing a nuclear weapon than the US intelligence services and IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Administration, had believed. In fact, the former MIT provost warned that the United States had been extraordinary lucky. He said the idea that that sanctions and containment were adequate to stop Iraq from making any further advances into the Persian Gulf beyond Kuwait falsely assumed Iraq would pose no additional dangers. In fact, said Deutch, the Iraqi government was within months of acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, which would have made expelling the Iraqi army from Kuwait probably impossible. Ironically, the position Deutch roundly condemned, ironically, was the position held by nearly eighty percent of all Democratic members of the United States Congress, a position the current putative Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry also maintained when he voted against providing President Bush in 1990 the authority to dislodge Iraq from Kuwait using US and Allied military power. The lesson learned, Deutch said, was the danger of relying on elegant intelligence, including IAEA and UN inspections, to assure us that a clandestine nuclear program in Iraq, or in other states such as Iran and Libya, was not in fact under way. Although Iraq was expelled from Kuwait in order to draw a line against cross-border aggression, the US also destroyed Iraq’s fairly advanced nuclear weapons programs, the former goal on purpose and the latter goal somewhat by accident. Deutch complained that the Bush administration had not kept our intelligence capability up to snuff. He said we should have known of the extent of the Iraqi nuclear weapons capability, which would have added urgency to our efforts, first to dissuade Iraq from invading Kuwait, and second, to put together the coalition that eventually did expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait. Ironically, Deutch himself would later preside over the one-quarter downsizing of the intelligence community in the Clinton administration. He would also push ridiculous restrictions on the recruitment of intelligence agents that made it even more difficult to keep abreast of the dangers facing America from terrorists and their state sponsors. Fast forward to 1994. Saddam had been removed from Kuwait. A cease-fire agreement had established sanctions against Iraq. An inspections regime had been put in place designed to secure the full disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction—stockpiles and programs. A no-fly zone was maintained by US and British warplanes over northern and southern Iraq. And a naval curtain descended around key Jordanian ports to prevent the illegal shipment of goods in and out of Iraq. The assumption: Iraq was contained. That year, David Kay, later to become a key inspector in UNSCOM, the UN body created to validate Iraqi compliance with UN disarmament resolutions, writing in a quarterly published by CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, warned that the ongoing Iraqi practice of “deception and denial” made reliance upon ongoing inspections and the NPT, (Non-Proliferation Treaty), highly suspect as a basis for believing that a rogue state such as Iraq was disarmed or would stay disarmed. He warned, prophetically, that even without possessing stockpiles of weapons, Iraq would maintain a cadre of scientific and technical capability to very quickly—in a matter of months-- reconstitute chemical and biological weapons programs. This was echoed in the near future by UN inspector Rolf Ekeus who warned that Saddam had been within months to a year of securing nuclear weapons if he had been able to secure weapons grade plutonium, the exact warning future DCI George Tenet would provide to the then Clinton administration in 1998 and later, in a somewhat modified form, to the current Bush administration. Said Ekeus, “the capabilities are there, the supply system…The day the embargo is lifted…that will be a great concern. With the cash, the suppliers and the skills, they will be able to reestablish all the weapons programs”. Shortly after the end of the Gulf War, UN inspectors found many hundreds of dual use machines capable of ultracentrifuge enrichment in Iraq. Rebuffing his own staff, Hans Blix of the IAEA refused to designate numerous sites and facilities with such technology as subject to UN inspections. According to one source, Blix expressed both exasperation and impatience with the inspection process, but not with the hide and seek game being played by Saddam Hussein and his agents, but with the UN staff who insisted on doing things by the book. A decade later, Blix would complain that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was really no big deal: “global warming is far more of a threat”. Now rewind the history tape back to early 1993. The World Trade Center was attacked with bombs designed to topple the two towers into each other and cause the death of hundreds of thousands of people. Cyanide gas was also part of the weaponry but was never exploded. Some six people were killed and close to a thousand more wounded. One White House senior staffer would later write that the attack “was not a successful bombing.” The President, Bill Clinton, never visited the site. He urged Americans not to panic. The New York Times, in its Metro section, spent the next two years doing a relatively masterful job in covering the attack. Unremarked on by the media today, ironically, was its careful reporting about a link between the 1993 Trade Center attack and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In fact, only one mention was made of Osama in the tens of thousands of pages of testimony at numerous terrorist trials, including the WTC in 1993. Two Clinton era officials claim that between 1995-7, there was “little interest” in looking beyond the immediate actors to determine the extent of the terrorist spider web, including state actors. The party line was “ad hoc terrorists and loosely affiliated terrorists”. As the Clinton administration sought to arrest and try the bombers, they pushed twin prosecutions of Sheik Omar, a blind cleric living in New Jersey, on the one hand, and associates of Ramzi Yousef, on the other. No state actor was sought nor Al Qaeda, nor Osma Bin Laden. [This would change by 1995 when the Administration began to see Osama as the central financier of terrorist projects, as well as providing training camps. One security brief even explained that Al Qaeda was joined at the hip with a state sponsor, the Sudan!] Shortly before the Clinton administration had taken office, the out-going Bush administration struck the Al-Rabiya industrial complex at Zaafarniyah in Iraq, on January 17, 1993, destroying a facility where uranium enrichment machines remained, the very equipment on which Hans Blix had ordered his staff not to place controls. Military power, American military power, was required to do the job because of Blix’s incompetence and Saddam’s intransigence. The very American military power Blix now finds so contemptuous. Saddam rewarded the retiring President with an assassination attempt while Mr. Bush was visiting neighboring Kuwait. In response, the Clinton administration fired cruise missiles into an Iraqi intelligence facility believing once and for all that the strike would keep Saddam in his cage. Former Clinton counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke just recently said on CBS Television’s Sixty Minutes that the strike kept Saddam contained for the remainder of the eight years of the Clinton administration. It was apparently payback for both the attack on the Trade Center and the attempt on Bush’s life. This assertion is without foundation and Clarke knows it. White House aid Stephanopoulos claimed the cruise missile attack was inconclusive at best. By 1995, the administration was talking about supporting a coup against Saddam. Benjamin and Simon, two National Security counter terrorism officials repeatedly pushed for regime change in Iraq, but were rebuffed. Clarke even says in his book that Ramzi Yousef quite possibly trained Terry Nichols in the bomb making required for the Oklahoma City bombing. Given Yousef’s apparent connections to Iraqi intelligence, how does this square with the assertion that a June 1993 missile strike kept Saddam in his cage? Furthermore, Clinton himself would completely contradict Clarke’s assertion later in his term when in a 1998 speech following the removal of the UN inspectors from Iraq, he said that only regime change would be adequate to stop Saddam’s quest for weapons of mass destruction and his continued terrorism. How is regime change consistent with the claim that Saddam was “contained”? Earlier that year, in January 1998, President Clinton warned of the threat of terrorists visiting Baghdad and picking up supplies of Anthrax with which to attack the United States. This assertion again totally contradicts Richard Clarke’s claim that the Clinton policy on counter terrorism was a success because of one cruise missile strike launched by President Clinton early in 1993. In addition, how do you explain the attacks on the US in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kenya, Tanzania and elsewhere, all during his administration? And finally, Clarke’s assertion is also contradicted by two points made by his Clinton NSC colleagues, Benjamin and Simon: first, the agents recruited for Afghanistan to go after Bin Laden were refused permission to attack, but only could retaliate if fired upon; and second, recommendations to prohibit the transfer of anthrax through the mails was derailed because of objections it would compromise academic freedom. This is not a serious counter terrorism policy. Now, fast-forward again to the present. Following the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, it became obvious that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks. But was that all? The Governor Gilmore advisory group on terrorism had told Congress in 1996 that an attack by terrorists against the United States using weapons of mass destruction would highly likely have to involve the cooperation of a rogue state, such as Iraq, Iran, Libya or North Korea. They said the view that state sponsors were absent from Al Qaeda was seriously mistaken. Even after the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, senior counter terrorism officials in the Clinton administration believed Al Qaeda was acting alone. Even then, when the Sudanese offered to give up Bin Laden, as they had done Carlos the Jackal, Richard Clarke intervened, claiming there was no US criminal indictment of the leader of Al Qaeda and the US therefore “did not want custody”. This failure to capture Bin Laden is all the more disturbing in light of a February 1999 meeting of a State Department official and the Taliban, where the US demanded that Osama be turned over to a country, including the US, “where he would face justice”, or the US would hold the Taliban responsible for any terrorist attack emanating from its soil. The US official told Mullah Jalil the US would act pre-emptively if necessary. Why was the US asking for Bin Laden in 1999 but not accepting him as a gift from Sudan in 1998? Thus it is that 9/11 occurred after a decade of some successes against terrorism, but many failures. The failures were not of intelligence. They were failures of policy and of bureaucratic bungling. A policy that saw law enforcement and occasional cruise missile strikes as the answer to terrorism could not succeed. Endless bureaucratic wrangling over whether to use or not use the Predator, an Air Force drone capable of being armed with Hellfire missiles, for example, didn’t help either. An immigration system left tattered with holes through which illegal immigrant workers and terrorists could walk unimpeded also led to 9/11, as Americans wanted their nannies and vegetables cheap. And a law enforcement and intelligence community with evidence of folks getting flying lessons but wanted to learn nothing about landing an aircraft languished in bureaucratic files, never having been forwarded to the White House. While this history is instructive, it is only set down here as a guide to what we are now hearing about the post 9/11 response to state sponsored terrorism, because in the final analysis, those denying state sponsors conceded their errors when they endorsed the US destruction of the Taliban as the sanctuary from which Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center in 2001. But their errors go much further. Those responsible for the policy failures that led to 9/11 now are busy rewriting history to gloss over their failures. They have taken positions now completely contrary to their previous views, and have ignored these contradictions. The only consistency among them is to attack this administration. The confluence of a terrorist attack, the global reach of Al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction, and state sponsors, pressed the Bush administration to think beyond the approach to counter terrorism which the Clinton administration had pursued for nearly a decade—seeing in terrorism only a loose federation of individual terrorists and no state sponsors providing sanctuary training, finances, and God forbid, the ultimate weapons of mass destruction. It is not as if the Bush administration sought to identify all possible state sponsors of terrorism, including Iraq, out of a misapplied plot to rearrange the map of the Middle East or as some Machiavellian deal for oil as has been ridiculously claimed. So ludicrous have such claims become that one Boston Globe writer, finding out my Jewish middle name, immediately inducted me into the neo-conservative cabal supposedly behind the liberation of Iraq. If the sleuths in the media had only looked they could have found the connections. The director of the New York FBI office, Mr. Jim Fox, believed in Iraq’s complicity in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. A new book has just been published tying Iraq to the Oklahoma City bombing as well. Terry Nichols traveled to the Philippines for training in explosives, and used a payphone at the very same apartment used by Yousef when he accidentally set fire to his apartment while making explosives for a plan to simultaneously blow up a dozen airliners over the Pacific Ocean. In addition, an Iraqi embassy official had helped spirit out of Malaysia associates of Yousef also involved in the same plot. And Mohammad Atta, the key player in the 2001 World Trade Center attack, visited with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in early 2001, and according to a recently discovered Iraqi intelligence document, received training in Baghdad during the summer before the September attacks. A calendar of the Iraqi intelligent agent has also been discovered with the name “Hamburg Student” in the space for an April 8th, 2001 meeting in Prague, a name by which Atta was known. This failure to consider such evidence has led many of the opponents of the use of military force to liberate Iraq to argue that there was no state sponsorship of Al Qaeda, the subject, for example, of a major feature in Newsweek. Many even opposed liberating Afghanistan after 9/11, but many conceded such a military effort was justified when Richard Clarke claimed it one of his central proposals during the first months of the Bush administration. But having conceded this point, most are quick to claim that a secular Iraq and a religious Al Qaeda could never work together and thus state sponsorship of terrorism is virtually non-existent. Are these arguments correct? Are they consistent? Lets look at the record. These same critics, not surprisingly, routinely condemn the administration for pushing the deployment of missile defenses. Their arguments are precisely opposite the ones they make to oppose the administration’s use of military force against Iraq. Remember, these critics say there is no cooperation between Iraq and terrorism. But they assert in the same breath that North Korea or other rogue states are a far more serious threat to the US because they would give nuclear weapons to terrorists to deliver by boat or truck, smuggled into some US seaport, for example. And delivery by boat won’t be stopped by missile defenses, so missile defenses are not needed. But having argued there is no cooperation between a secular state, Iraq, and a religious terrorist group, Al Qaeda, they immediately switch gears and claim a secular North Korea will do precisely what they claim Iraq would not. Having made the argument that nuclear weapons could be sold by North Korea to Al Qaeda, but “heavens no” not by Iraq, these same critics note that while terrorists might deliver a nuclear weapons by ship or truck, a missile, for example, would never be used. This is certainly counter-intuitive. Why would North Korea, Iraq and Iran build long- range missiles if they weren’t going to be used? So how do critics extricate themselves from having to admit that well, yes, these countries might use ballistic missiles? Well, they won’t be used, it is claimed, because they have a “return address”. This is parallel to the argument that shadowy terrorist groups might attack us but rogue states won’t because the latter is deterred because we can identify where the attack originated. Such an argument is false on its face when examined carefully. Iraq fired scores of missiles at Israel in 1991, knowing full well the US and its allies, and Israel, knew where they came from. Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and until recently Libya, all pursued ballistic missile development programs at a cost of many billions. Did they forget missiles have a return address? Perhaps that is precisely what they wanted us to know—yes, these missiles have a return address, and guess what, we have plenty more where these came from! The view that ballistic missiles pose no threat because they have a return address is also not necessarily true even if one is talking about terrorist groups. In opposing the use of military force to liberate Iraq, critics claimed such an attack would unleash terrorist attacks by, say, Hamas or Hezbollah against Israel. And what are the chosen instruments of these terrorists? Thousands of missiles and rockets, supplied by Iran and aimed at Israel from southern Lebanon. But it gets even better. Two noted missile defense critics, Joe Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Philip Coyle of the Center for Defense Information, have argued repeatedly that the US needs no national missile defense. Why they explain? If North Korea, for example, builds long-range missiles, we will pre-emptively attack the missile sites. Coyle made these comments to a Canadian newspaper doing a story last week about the possible Canadian cooperation with the US missile defense program. So, too, Cirincione argued in a debate that missile defenses were unnecessary because the US could also preemptively attack the threatening missile sites, an attack policy he ridiculed as dangerous if pursued with respect to counter terrorism and counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction when applied to Iraq. Cirincione went even further. He said missile defenses were actually threatening. In an NPR debate with me, he invented a Chinese saying—“first the sword and then the shield”—to claim that the US deployment of a missile defense was part of a plan to attack other nations preemptively—the exact same scenario he claims the US could follow if it didn’t build missile defenses!! Coyle and Cirincione both assume that a military strike against a missile site will completely eliminate the threat of missile launches, an assumption most military planners are loath to accept. In fact, one former high ranking Air Force official involved in long range precision strike issues told me that he had never before heard such errant nonsense. Cirincione and Coyle have also argued repeatedly prior to the Iraqi liberation that the US should seek multilateral solutions to international security issues. But both have interjected themselves in debates in Canada and in Europe that these countries should not cooperate with the US on missile defense, in complete contradiction to their preferred avenue of action with respect to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. On missile defense, while the US has secured to date the cooperation of dozens of states on missile defense—a truly multilateral approach—critics actively work to undermine such an approach, while simultaneously arguing that a multilateral approach is the only collective possibility for action against Iraq. What, then, are the critics really about? I believe it is their utopian assumptions about international affairs and international law that is being tested. One is reminded of the complaint by Rodney King after the Los Angeles riots—“Why can’t we all get along?” Arms control and international agreements sound so nice. They “win the news cycle”. They don’t disrupt the economy. The use of military force, as one important arrow in the quiver of statecraft, is mistrusted by these people. And especially US military power. It is as if the lessons of the Cold War remain unlearned. For example, early in 1981, Secretary of State Al Haig told a Reagan administration Security Council meeting that terrorism was state sponsored and the former Soviet Union was the prime culprit. He said that the only way to deal with this threat was to “go to the source”. The comment was leaked to the Washington Post, which proceeded to have a coronary. Washington was abuzz with questions whether the Administration, having just taken office, was going to start bombing Moscow. Pundits complained the Secretary of State must have been under the spell of a then recently published book by terrorism expert Claire Sterling, which described the nexus between state sponsors and terrorism, a book widely ridiculed. Reagan, of course, shortly thereafter laid out a comprehensive plan to topple the Soviet Union. He believed Moscow spent far more than the intelligence services believed on defense, and that with strong pressure—including military, diplomatic, financial, and political measures—the Soviet Union could be made to collapse and its support for terrorism end. The CIA, when asked to compile a dossier on the Soviet Union and terrorism, came back and told the administration the Soviets not only didn’t support terrorism, but also actively opposed it!! Years later, when I visited El Salvador, I spent time in a hospital talking with women and children whose limbs were blown away by land mines placed in that country’s coffee farms and plantations. The mines were purchased with money from the Sandinistas, Cubans and Soviets, as well as from US-based fund raising done by CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. Despite all this evidence, the critics of the Bush administration say inspections are up to the task to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but these people opposed the very inspections they now so admire, and were rescued by American military power they take pains to ridicule. While critics complain “there are no stockpiles” of weapons, they ignore sound warnings made years ago that stockpiles are not even as serious a problem as the technical know-how that can be imparted to terrorists anywhere. David Kay warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that the threat from Iraq was even more serious not because of stockpiles of weapons—which still remain unaccounted for—but because Iraq had become prior to its liberation a “terrorists bazaar” where weapons of mass destruction know-how and technology could be stolen, bought or smuggled. Former Clinton officials claim “law enforcement” is adequate to the job, but their own administration rhetorically abandoned such an approach at least by 1998 if not before. Pre-emption and missile defense are decried by the New York Times’ Bill Keller as an example of an “unfettered national interest”, but when pre-emption is advocated as a substitute for missile defense by critics of both, such criticisms is front-page news. In early June 2003, I attended a reception for the Black Chiefs of Staff from Capitol Hill. There standing holding court was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Terry McAuliffe. He immediately reached out his hand and exclaimed: “Another good Democrat! What do you do?” I replied I was a defense policy analyst, to which he immediately asked, “How can we attack Bush?” I replied that as a former Reagan Democrat the proper question would better be, “How can the Democratic Party work to help the President be successful in the war against Islamic fascism and its state sponsors.” To which McAuliffe replied, handing me his business card, “No, no, no, how can we attack Bush?” Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense consulting form, Vice President of the newly created National Center for Critical Incident Analysis, in affiliation with the National Defense University Foundation, and is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger. The opinions expressed are his alone.

Yeah, sorry we couldn't play.... Once again, team Staff Infection was inoculated.

You girls did pretty good! BTW, I was the one that supplied the 4th place trophy. ...including the cups and corkscrew.

Ed, you do fly a little flat, but I think it's more a case of being inconsistent. You just need to be in there more. Other than that you did fine while flying with Erin; better than you did with me. Did you see me forget the dive flow several times flying with the girls? Yeah, about flying flat. I tend to flatten out after about 20 minutes and having even just a few pounds in the belt will allow you to maintain your arch. I learned that while flying with Pat and Dom with me being the floaty one. Rosa, you are an impressive tunnel flier. You fit right in on the 4 way with Erin, Marie, and Mel.

Are you wearing Nomex?

I was referring mainly to solos, but as a student with an instructor that is understandable. Occasionally I get yelled when I'm with a student. Heck as a late diver on a 16 way I've even been yelled at!

Ed, This hasn't happend yet, since it never gets to that point. If there really is a problem with the jumper in question, I will assist on spotting on their next jump. Shark (former AFF student of Ed)

BTW, did you clean the windows yet? Good seeing you at the fish bowl.

Yeah, I think those jumpers were over anxious, however, we use a 6 second minimum and adding more time if the uppers are stronger than 10-15. This is normally discussed during the first few loads. It sounds like they told you 5 seconds since the uppers may have been light. You go when it's safe, which may be at the end of your 5 second separation. Some may need to, but more likely than not they are the jumpmasters. I've yelled on occassion when I witness a novice take 20 seconds. eg. The group in front of him goes, he gets up then spots several seconds, takes a deep breath, then does his 3 count exit. I spoke to him on the ground and he swore it was only 6 or 7 seconds. These are normally newbies, solo students, or newly minted A license jumpers. Noncompliance will normally have you jump last after AFF/Tandem and/or a lecture from the S&TA. The game is safety, and that goes not just for you, but those exiting before and after you. Shark AFFI/TI Skydive Elsinore

Looks like most of them are moving to Spain. The ETA needs more recruits. Zamochit baklan

You quote our gear shop at Elsinore. I know for a fact that they will refer you to the school if you require a larger canopy. Several licensed jumpers still rent the Nav 240s and 260s. Wingloading is just part of the equation; a large part. What about a 110 lb. chick loaded at 1.4? She's just above the jump number range for it, why cant she jump the Velocity 87?

Oh, and nice legs, too!

Nick, You attended the FJC last year and the Two Out procedures may differ. From the 2005 SIM: 2. Both parachutes deployed: a. Biplane (1) Do not cut away. (2) Steer the front canopy gently using toggles. (3) Leave the brakes stowed on the back canopy. (4) Make a parachute landing fall on landing. b. Side-by-side (two alternatives) side-by-side alternative one If the two canopies are not tangled, cut away and fly the reserve to a safe landing. side-by-side alternative two (1) Steer the dominant (larger) canopy gently using toggles. (2) Leave the brakes stowed on the other canopy. (3) Make a parachute landing fall on landing. c. Downplane: Cut away the main canopy.