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The wing commander and the vice commander at the 45th Space Wing are both African-American. Brig Gen Bolton, http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=9511 and http://www.patrick.af.mil/library/biographies/index.asp

This AC is unambiguously WRONG about DoD policy regarding affirmative action and equal opportunity.

I normally ignore these racist rants from ACs but since it has been modded up as informative by unsuspecting mods, I will respond in brief.

ALL branches of the military have policy and guidelines in place for recruiting, retainment and training of disadvantaged minorities. This is unequivocal FACT.

These policies and guidelines are open and fully available to the general public:

Army: http://www.aschq.army.mil/supportingdocs/p600_26.pdf
Navy: http://neds.nebt.daps.mil/Directives/5354d3.pdf
Air Force: http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af/36/afpd36-D2/afpd36-D2.pdf
Marine Corps: http://www.29palms.usmc.mil/base/safety/eo/pdf/EO%20Terms%20and%20Definitions.pdf

Some of these are not the official policy/plans but are official documents that do refer to them. I'm not going to burn up the rest of my Saturday night looking wasting time responding to this AC but hope this is enough for those who might believe there is even a shred of truth to this AC's post.

The fact that so many who have served are not aware of the existence of these policies is a testament to the policies' effectiveness. This is one of the few policy level implementations that the military has done right. By the time promotion boards roll around, it is either transparent or nearly transparent to the board members.

I will remind those that care that the "Military" amicus brief filed by military leaders in 2003 during the Grutter vs. Bollinger (University of Michigan) was cited by the Supreme Court as being one of the strongest arguments in favor of affirmative action in higher education.

This is going a little afield of the topic, but I think your last paragraph deserves a documented response.

As you probably know, when Reagan signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture, it became the supreme law of the land, as described in Article VI of the United States Constitution:

all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Now, you may be saying to yourself "but a treaty is not self-executing - Congress still has to make a law for it to be United States Law!" This is true:

Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998.

The Act also required relevant agencies to promulgate and enforce regulations to implement CAT, subject to the understandings, declarations, and reservations made by the Senate resolution of ratification.

This quotation is from a (PDF) 2004 report that discusses the United States' obligations with respect to the CAT (Convention Against Torture)

So, since waterboarding is torture (your training example involves consent of the subject and I don't think applies here), there was a law against it, and it was done by the United States, it was and is a crime. The Convention not only outlaws torture in all the participant states, but requires them to investigate and prosecute any incidences of torture found within the borders of any participant states. The Convention creates a universal jurisdiction as well - any participant state has jurisdiction to pursue torturers found in any other participant state. This goes some way towards explaining what's going on in Spain.

But we need to look forward not backward.

How do I submit my proposals to the USAF?

The Air Force is a step ahead of you. They already have UAVs like the RQ-11 Raven, which is launched by hand and weighs about 5 pounds. It can't carry weapons, but then, that's what more powerful UAVs like the MQ-9 Reaper are for.

How do I submit my proposals to the USAF?

The Air Force is a step ahead of you. They already have UAVs like the RQ-11 Raven, which is launched by hand and weighs about 5 pounds. It can't carry weapons, but then, that's what more powerful UAVs like the MQ-9 Reaper are for.

"FYI: I really do like your stances."

Well, it seems that we are now more on petty details than deep qualitative differences (and that's expected or else the conversation wouldn't last that long).

"When I was a supervisor, I basically told my troops to talk to me and let me know their thoughts on things. When the time came, though, they had to jump when I said jump."

My point was just the second part (there's a time to jump when the boss says "jump") but the fact of the matter is I behave exactly the same (or at least, that I tried): I used to tell it on a somehow cynical -but I meant it seriously, way: please, let me know everything you think may be relevant and tell me your opinion and I'll take it all into consideration. Then, of course, you'll do exactly as I say, with no recourse, even if from time to time my unrecourseable order will be "do it your way" (and that's valid only on non-action days: if we are in a hurry and it'll be me the one that decide if we are in a hurry, you'll do as I say and we will have the conversation later). All in all, it usually worked.

"2) I'd agree with you about corruption being out of place in a democracy, but that's an ideal."

Of course you know the famouse cite -was it from Franklin? the price of liberty is perennial awareness, or something as such. We are living -most of us, first world citizens I mean, on quite calm times so we tend to forget that grieve is the most withstanding force, for the good (that's the moving force of capitalism) and for the bad too (that's the basis of all corruption) the fact that we don't have to strive for our very life -at least not too often, doesn't mean we can forget we still need to fight -against the bad face of greed, against corruption, against powerful staments, not only government but everyone of them, and its natural tendence to abuse, etc.

"3) The US Military, and it's equipment, being in bad shape is different than being better than the opponents."

Probably you are right, but I think it's still basically irrelevant: good enough is good enough. Of course Roman Empire's generals would be grateful if some Thunderbolts fully equiped were time-transported to their days, but the qualitative effects would be nihil: Roman Empire was the superpower of its days with or without A-10s, and A-10s are quite expensive, even without considering time-machine related costs.

"Older planes take more time, money and people to maintain."

Than what? If your point is that they are more expensive than the demonstrable alternatives, then you have a case; if the point is that a current 30-year-old Thunderbolt has higher maintenance costs than ten years ago but still is cheaper than buying new planes, then you don't have a case.

"http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,135018,00.html
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123089011
Some links, as requested."

Mixed feelings. Of course the part on your fist link about "I don't want to write a letter, or have my successor write a letter, 'Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith, your son or daughter are dead because the wing fell off on takeoff. We knew it was going to fall off, we just didn't know when.'" is undebatable but everything else it is.

So maintaing 20-year-old planes is more expensive than maintaining 10-year-old planes? What a surprise! That equipment that see hard real action suffer more than the one used on practices? Are you joking me?

But what's the point? This is not the point: the point is knowing if mantaining current 20-year-old planes is more or less expensive than buying new ones *now* (at an stated cost of 400 billion). And then, your first link miserably fails at stating anything about this (even more: it covers its ass by showing opinions on both directions).

Regarding your second link, quite more of the same: first you have a high rank official telling he wants more and better toys (what a surprise!) against an unstated future menace

FYI: I really do like your stances. 1) Even in the military, there is a time and place for using such methods of arbitrary leadership. When I was a supervisor, I basically told my troops to talk to me and let me know their thoughts on things. When the time came, though, they had to jump when I said jump. So, I guess we agree, it's a matter of the circumstance? 2) I'd agree with you about corruption being out of place in a democracy, but that's an ideal. Granted, corruption is not the same as having different goals or ambitions than what you may have voted for. There are cases of out and out corruptions, such as Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's action. The more cynical of us think his mistake was getting caught. There are murmurings of the mayor of my county being backed by large companies to make decisions which are bad for small businesses. That may just be the folks that didn't agree with her, though. 3) The US Military, and it's equipment, being in bad shape is different than being better than the opponents. Older planes take more time, money and people to maintain. Granted, that's not to say battles are going to be lost soley on that matter, but when it gets down to it, the military buyers would like to decide what their budget goes towards.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,135018,00.html
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123089011

Some links, as requested. I hope they match what we're talking about enough for you.

Since ADA was the language created for military code, mil-spec code looks a lot like an ADA program. Design by contract, for one thing.

GDSS-2 is written in VB6.

the F22 can be brought down by a simple HAM radio (reference Brittish Library Direct).

Did you rtfa you linked to? Here's the full text.

Bringing down an aircraft is much different then overwhelming "electronic surveillance systems", especially since those sensors can be tuned to remove the interference, though in the process reducing efficacy.

I'd also imagine the IED jammers causing the "electromagnetic environment" problems are more complex than "a simple HAM radio". Maybe a very powerful and altered ham radio, but I would argue you would have to at least remove the simple qualifier.

Because the Air Force decided to add "cyberspace" into their mission statement to justify asking more money from Congress.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123013440

Being in the military, its very frustrating knowing a plethora of ways to make your job more secure but lacking the ability to change anything. Most of the branches, instead of pushing the envelope of computing like in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, have removed themselves from the business and contract it out (its not sexy enough and doesn't envolve tangable assets). Reminds me of the notorious deal in the 70s when IBM contracted Microsoft to build its disk operating system...

Apologies about the "hacker" faux pas.

Anyway, you might be right about the cracker coming back with a honeypot. I wish I was a fly on the cracker's wall so I could see how this played out.

As far as gov't grey-hats go, there is definitely a turf war between agencies. Hell, even the Air Force wants a piece of the pie. God help us all!

I know you got modded funny, but you should have gotten some "insightful" points as well -- because this is how some military folks actually think.

An anecdote: Our office is in charge of creating a display for a local airport. The plan was to showcase some of the satellites we control and some information about what they do. A couple of weeks into working on things, someone from higher headquarters said they were concerned about including information on how high the satellites are above the Earth.

Yes -- some knothead decided that we should omit information like the satellites' altitude, despite the fact that this information is already freely available to the public.

Oh, and this higher headquarters? It's the same agency that's now responsible for "defending cyberspace."

I know you got modded funny, but you should have gotten some "insightful" points as well -- because this is how some military folks actually think.

An anecdote: Our office is in charge of creating a display for a local airport. The plan was to showcase some of the satellites we control and some information about what they do. A couple of weeks into working on things, someone from higher headquarters said they were concerned about including information on how high the satellites are above the Earth.

Yes -- some knothead decided that we should omit information like the satellites' altitude, despite the fact that this information is already freely available to the public.

Oh, and this higher headquarters? It's the same agency that's now responsible for "defending cyberspace."

I know you got modded funny, but you should have gotten some "insightful" points as well -- because this is how some military folks actually think.

An anecdote: Our office is in charge of creating a display for a local airport. The plan was to showcase some of the satellites we control and some information about what they do. A couple of weeks into working on things, someone from higher headquarters said they were concerned about including information on how high the satellites are above the Earth.

Yes -- some knothead decided that we should omit information like the satellites' altitude, despite the fact that this information is already freely available to the public.

Oh, and this higher headquarters? It's the same agency that's now responsible for "defending cyberspace."

I know of at least one exception to the "option 1" rule for general officers:

http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5475

She has at least one kid that I'm aware of.

Comsidering that an F-15 successfully shot down (destroyed) a satellite which was orbiting 555km above the Earth, the assertion that a blimp would be safe from aircraft attack is demonstrable bunk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-15_Eagle#Operational_history
Moreover, a preproduction F-15 (the "Streak Eagle") in breaking its eighth time to altitude record, went from standstill on the ground to 98,425 feet (30 km) in 208 seconds, and coasted to 103,000 feet. Modern interceptors can reach such altitudes with little if any modification. 65,000 feet is within their normal operating capability.
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=621

The U2 went for this, and it didn't work for long.

It would be high enough to avoid the 'portable' launchers. Sure, the Russians can knock down something that high, but...

I'd guess Iran would have the Sayyad-1 or something along that line of thought. It has a flight altitude of ~66,000 feet and the blimp is going to fly at ~65,000 feet. Just in the envelope, but *that* is a serious rocket - not something that can be just launched from the back of a truck. You would probably use this over airspace you more or less controlled.

Compare that the Preditor, which hits a ceiling around 25,000 feet. A much easier target.

Same deal, IMHO - just another drone. This one with a bit better altitude. You could bring it down, but this is just another cheap, unmanned, long duration surveillance platform. Bet the SAM setup to bring it down, which would get one shot off (if they could get it set up...) would not be worth the cost/benefit ratio.

Soon to be 1B0X4. http://www.afcyber.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080701-022.pdf

Ehh, well, the USAF thinks it's mission is "cyber" too:

"-- to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace." (http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123013440)

Not that I am agreeing with them. I think "defending" the Internet should be a civilian mission...

It's the 'B' section of RIG (whatever that is).

Don't you mean aluminum oxynitride? http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123012131

RE Nagasaki, Bockscar's primary was Kokura, another "major nexus" as you put it. (HQ, barracks, logistical hubs, etc.) In fact, it looks like Kokura was second on the unified target list, after Hiroshima, and would have been the first city nuked if Hiroshima had to be skipped.

When Bockscar arrived at Kokura, it was cloud-obscured, and their attack orders specified visual bombsighting only. (Rather than radar targeting, which was an option.) So, they left Kokura, proceeded to their secondary (Nagasaki), found it obscured also, and loitered until close to the end of their mission time. The cloud cover broke, they prosecuted their attack, and history was written.

Apparently, Nagasaki was a planned secondary, mostly for industrial, transport, and military value. Nagasaki was one of the most important civil seaports, and home of military naval base Sasebo and the Mitsubishi shipyard (source of ships like Musashi ). So definitely, inasmuch as any major industrialized city can be a valid and high-value military target, Nagasaki was so.

Thanks. I didn't have a ton of time to hunt that stuff down again (posting at work, yet I have time for /. =P)

In light of the enormity of the historical event, a trivial personal note: If Bockscar had hit her primary, I might not exist. My mother is Japanese and was a teenager living close to Kokura that day.

Isn't it interesting how things come together like that?

RE Nagasaki, Bockscar's primary was Kokura, another "major nexus" as you put it. (HQ, barracks, logistical hubs, etc.) In fact, it looks like Kokura was second on the unified target list, after Hiroshima, and would have been the first city nuked if Hiroshima had to be skipped.

When Bockscar arrived at Kokura, it was cloud-obscured, and their attack orders specified visual bombsighting only. (Rather than radar targeting, which was an option.) So, they left Kokura, proceeded to their secondary (Nagasaki), found it obscured also, and loitered until close to the end of their mission time. The cloud cover broke, they prosecuted their attack, and history was written.

Apparently, Nagasaki was a planned secondary, mostly for industrial, transport, and military value. Nagasaki was one of the most important civil seaports, and home of military naval base Sasebo and the Mitsubishi shipyard (source of ships like Musashi ). So definitely, inasmuch as any major industrialized city can be a valid and high-value military target, Nagasaki was so.

In light of the enormity of the historical event, a trivial personal note: If Bockscar had hit her primary, I might not exist. My mother is Japanese and was a teenager living close to Kokura that day.

You only needed your passport.

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/questions/topic.asp?id=180

For anyone in the Dayton Ohio area, the Air Force One display at the Air Force Museum near Wright Patterson is recommended. They have all of the old planes their, complete with FDR's Sacred Cow, with custom wheelchair elevator, and Kennedy's plane.

I blame HAARP and the Air Force

RAPTOR Flowchart Interpreter

Web Site: http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/dfcs/bios/mcc_html/raptor.cfm
Web Site: http://raptor.martincarlisle.com/
Screenshot: http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/dfcs/bios/mcc_html/raptor_picture.cfm

RAPTOR is a flowchart-based programming environment, designed specifically to help students visualize their algorithms and avoid syntactic baggage. RAPTOR programs are created visually and executed visually by tracing the execution through the flowchart. Required syntax is kept to a minimum. Students prefer using flowcharts to express their algorithms, and are more successful creating algorithms using RAPTOR than using a traditional language or writing flowcharts without RAPTOR.

RAPTOR Flowchart Interpreter

Web Site: http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/dfcs/bios/mcc_html/raptor.cfm
Web Site: http://raptor.martincarlisle.com/
Screenshot: http://www.usafa.af.mil/df/dfcs/bios/mcc_html/raptor_picture.cfm

RAPTOR is a flowchart-based programming environment, designed specifically to help students visualize their algorithms and avoid syntactic baggage. RAPTOR programs are created visually and executed visually by tracing the execution through the flowchart. Required syntax is kept to a minimum. Students prefer using flowcharts to express their algorithms, and are more successful creating algorithms using RAPTOR than using a traditional language or writing flowcharts without RAPTOR.

"The VPN isn't, by itself, going to be filtering out phishing emails. And we've graduated from username/passwords some time ago."

The email system would only accept email from identifiably PKI certified senders and while this one uses PKI certificates it hasn't yet graduated off the InterTUBES, as in I can still send malicious packets directly to the server, which if the current infrastructure were adequate then the US Air Force wouldn't be:

".. fed up with a seemingly endless barrage of attacks on its computer networks from stealthy adversaries whose motives and even locations are unclear.. "

Netperger Syndrome: an obsessive compulsion to argue with total stranger over the InterTUBES

Yes, I'm sure every potential recruit would just love to have to install a VPN client to go check out af.mil.

According to this link the Philippine Scouts had a big hand in helping the Australians:

http://www2.hurlburt.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123053061

The 50 day conquest of the Philippines predicted by Japanese Imperial command had taken 6 months. The valiant stand of the Philippine Scouts bought enough time to save Australia and New Zealand from possible invasion. The two countries become the staging point from which Gen. Douglas MacArthur would launch his campaign leading to his wading ashore on a Leyte invasion October 1944, making good on his famous "I shall return" promise.

I had the same reaction to the title. "[T]he teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery." —Edsger W. Dijkstra

I agree that Python would almost definitely be the best first choice as far as language. It has simple syntax without sacrificing expressive power. Dynamic typing and native lists defer the need to understand memory-related details, and may encourage students to write flexible code without having to learn about explicit polymorphism. Perhaps most importantly, as an interpreted language, Python allows the students to "be the program" and tinker with the language one line at a time.

Java is a good second choice if you want them to have type-safety and to work with a more conventional syntax, so long as you don't let the students fall into the trap of just using the libraries to do everything without understanding the underlying computational processes, as warned in this essay (and as cited by the great ESR).

I think the claim to have beaten the Global Hawk by 2x is a bit misleading - it implies a doubling of existing capabilities. In fact, it only UNOFFICIALLY doubles an OFFICIAL record, which itself is not the longest flight recorded by any means. In 1989 a Boeing UAV named Condor flew over 58 hours, and had a design endurance of 80 hours. Okay, they never claimed it as an official record, but it was still a valid flight, just like this was.

Here's an interesting video:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/boeing-condor-uav/4285692709

And some facts:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=7988

Granted, the Zephyr is theoretically limited only by the service life of its electrical components - it could stay up until something broke or wore out. But please, let's use real facts here.

Remember Carters "give up the hostages or die" speech to Iran?

While I disagree with you about Obama, I often think back and wonder what would have happened politically to the US had the rescue mission to Iran not run into those sandstorms.

I'm thinking things may have been wildly different today.

Honestly, the s/n ratio keeps getting worse and worse here. News flash: government wastes money. Next.

What's really stupid here is that this isn't a waste of money. You think general staff and VIP politicos are going to ride down in the slings with the infantry? Fuck no! They're going to make the Air Force fly them around in C-40's or the like. Ponying up $1.5M for a box they can load on a C-17 is much cheaper. On top of that, when you look at the Air Force's budget, a few million is chump change. The only part of this that's even remotely dodgy is them trying to pay for it with "anti-terrorism" money. It hardly rates. All the money they spend comes from our pockets, regardless of what it's earmarked for, so what's the difference?

What's flamebait about it? The money was stolen. They were not authorized to spend it that way. And look at his bio. What has he done to deserve the promotion? He's a bureaucrat. Does being "chief" bureaucrat qualify you for all that? Puleeze! Part of the problem with today's military, beyond the lowered standards for getting in, is the ease that you can be promoted for kissing ass.

I wrote JOVIAL for 5 years, yes it's an old language, but it did have some quite neat features for accessing data really fast (memory overlays for example). NAS (National Airspace System) is written in JOVIAL and it does its job well enough. It's a good langauge for small memory footprints and usually all variables are global. I can't see what they are winning really rewriting it in C apart from introducing new bugs. There are JOVIAL to C preprocessors out there but they tend to produce sucky non maintainable code of course.

http://www.jovial.hill.af.mil/

The law itself -- the actual legal code -- can get pretty onerous. Judicial decisions aren't usually so bad, and US Supreme Court opinions can actually be very easily read (and are occasionally humorous, such as in the recent Heller case where the majority and dissents were sniping at each other throughout), and understood without a lot of law experience.

I rather like portions of the US Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is elegant, to the point, and very workable for the most part. The whole of the UCMJ is readable in a weekend, and most provisions are understandable by the average person. For example, murder is defined as follows:

Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he- -
(1) has a premeditated design to kill;
(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm;
(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or
(4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson;
is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct.

This is a common-sense approach, and I think that most people would agree that these are good definitions. Manslaughter has a different definition more akin to what people tend to think manslaughter should be. There are certainly some aspects which would need to be modified for the civilian population, but it would work as a starting point.

When he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he questioned the lawful orders of his superior, President Bill Clinton, the Commander in Chief of the USA and dragged his feet when Clinton ordered him to implement integration of gays into the military.

Due to the willful insubordination Powell displayed as a member of the military, he is deserving of a court martial under the UCMJ Punitive Articles for violations including "ATTEMPTS" (article 80),"CONTEMPT TOWARD OFFICIALS" (article 88), " FAILURE TO OBEY ORDER OR REGULATION" (article 92), "MUTINY OR SEDITION" (article 94), "CONDUCT UNBECOMING AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN" (article 133), and "GENERAL ARTICLE" (article 134).

The fact that he didn't get caught makes his actions that much more despicable.

Only example I know of something flying with PDE is Long-EZ and the technology still has a ways to go.

Air Force Research Laboratory's Propulsion Directorate

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/afrl/rz/

I thought I'd post a useful link rather than bashing some corporate spew machine.

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE, man!

DoD certs aren't necessarily any more trustworthy, viz: https://www.cheyennemountain.af.mil/

I feel safer already with the public site for one of the most secure military installations in the country on an expired cert signed by an untrusted authority.

/yes I know it's closed now, yes I know the site isn't run from there, please don't be that pedantic. The point is, the DoD doesn't necessarily renew all their certs, even though they sign them themselves. This one is two years expired.

Yep - there's even a webpage for the Air Force's cyber attackers.

The NSA is known to hide backdoors in US software distributed overseas (think "Windows") and the CIA and NSA almost certainly also have cyber war departments - although they don't broadcast that fact via a webpage.

The CIA has actually managed to blow up a Russian pipeline using cyber attacks - in 1982!

China is just returning fire from US attacks that have been occurring since the dawn of the information age.

I know! It's insane... They didn't release any of the "good" stuff. I browsed through it and it's all pretty dry reading. They even say they omitted the "good" stuff..

As quoted from the page:

"The attached manual was located by the Manchester (England) Metropolitan Police during a search of an Al Qaeda member's home. The manual was found in a computer file described as "the military series" related to the "Declaration of Jihad." The manual was translated into English and was introduced earlier this year at the embassy bombing trial in New York. The Department is only providing the following selected text from the manual because it does not want to aid in educating terrorists or encourage further acts of terrorism."

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/

The UK government is way off base here. How and why should these documents be "illegal"?? The way things are going over there, a copy of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence will be "illegal documents" soon!

Welcome to East Germany! Err.. I mean the United Kingdom of East Germany. ;)

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/
In a newer apartment, avoid talking loud because prefabricated ceilings and walls [used in the apartments] do not have the same thickness as those in old ones.

Most of the manual (the first one) is bullshit. BTW I'm surprised that they have given Israeli and Russian examples(what they did to achieve their goals) wherever possible.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/terrorism/alqaida_manual/

...Get everyone to associate the Air Force with high speed high tech computer hacking and security so that they have a better image for hiring...

Umm, America's Army is produced by the US Army, not the USAF. Hell, the US Army logo is everywhere in that game. Two very separate branches of the US armed forces.

The US has been preparing for this phase a little longer than China though :)

http://www.afspc.af.mil/units/