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Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence.^[1] A lieutenant colonel is typically in charge of a battalion in the army.

Lieutenant colonel ranks by country[link]

The following articles deal with the rank of lieutenant colonel (or its equivalent)

• Lieutenant-colonel (Canada)
• Lieutenant-colonel (France)
• Lieutenant colonel (United Kingdom)^[2]
• Lieutenant colonel (United States)

Lieutenant colonel equivalents[link]

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• Afghanistan — Dagarman (دګرمن)
• Albania — Nënkolonel
• Armenia — Pokhgndapet (փոխգնդապետ)
• Bangladesh — Lieutenant colonel
• Bosnia and Herzegovina — Potpukovnik
• Bulgaria — Podpolkovnik
• Czech Republic — Podplukovník
• People's Republic of China — 中校
• Republic of China (Taiwan) — 中校
• Denmark — Oberstløjtnant
• Egypt and Charter Arab League member countries — Moqaddem (مقدم)
• Estonia — Kolonelleitnant
• Ethiopia — Lieutenant koronel
• Finland — Everstiluutnantti
• Germany, Austria, Switzerland — Oberstleutnant
• Nazi Germany — Obersturmbannführer (only in the SS)
• Georgia — Vice-colonel (vitse-polkovniki)
• Greece — Antisyntagmatarkhis
• Hungary — Alezredes
• Indonesia — Letnan kolonel
• India — Lieutenant colonel ( लेफ्टिनेंट कर्नल )
• Iran — Sarhang dovom (سرهنگ دوم)
• Israel — Sgan aluf (סגן-אלוף)
• Italy — Tenente colonnello
• Japan — nisa (2佐)
• South Korea — Jungryung (중령)
• North Korea — Jungjwa (중좌)
• Latvia — Pulkvežleitnants
• Lebanon — مقدم
• Lithuania — Papulkininkis
• Netherlands — Luitenant-kolonel
• Pakistan — Lieutenant Colonel
• Poland — Podpułkownik
• Portugal, Brazil — Tenente-coronel
• Philippines — Tinyente koronel
• Romania — Locotenent colonel
• Russia — Podpolkovnik
• Serbia — Potpukovnik
• Spain and some Spanish speaking countries — Teniente coronel
• Saudi Arabia — مقدم
• Slovenia — Podpolkovnik
• Sweden — Överstelöjtnant
• South Africa — Commandant/kommandant (1950–1994); Luitenant-kolonel (Afrikaans language: pre-1950 and post-1994)
• Turkey — Yarbay
• Norway — Oberstløytnant
• Slovakia — Podplukovník
• Thailand — พันโท
• Ukraine — Pidpolkovnyk
• Vietnam — Trung Tá
• Ireland — Lieutenant-colonel

See also[link]

• Comparative military ranks
• Canadian Forces ranks and insignia
• British Army officer rank insignia
• U.S. Army officer rank insignia

References[link]

Mark Edward Weber (b. Portland, Oregon, October 9, 1951) is the director of the Institute for Historical Review,^[1] an American Holocaust denial^[2] organization based in southern California.

Weber has been associated with the IHR since 1991 and has been the Institute Director^[3] since 1995. For nine years he was editor of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review. ^[1]

Weber was born in Portland, Oregon in 1951. After graduating from Jesuit High School in 1969, he studied history in Chicago at the University of Illinois.^[1] He continued his studies for two semesters at the University of Munich, and, returning to Oregon, took a B.A. degree in history with high honors from Portland State University. In graduate school, he continued his study of history at Indiana University, receiving an M.A. degree in modern European history in 1977.^[4]

See also[link]

• Holocaust denial

References[link]

External links[link]

• Institute for Historical Review
• Mark Weber:The Professional Denier
• Is it all over for Holocaust deniers? Mark Weber admits ‘We’ve failed’
• A "Holocaust" Debate--Mark Weber vs Michael Shermer
• Who Are The Holocaust Revisionists?

Ralph Peters (born 1952) is a retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel and author. As a novelist he has sometimes written under the pen name Owen Parry.

Personal[link]

Peters was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania and grew up in Schuylkill Haven. His father was a coal miner and unsuccessful businessman. His wife, Katherine McIntire Peters, is a reporter for Government Executive magazine (a property of National Journal Group, Inc.).

Military career[link]

Peters enlisted in the Army as a private in 1976, after attending Pennsylvania State University.^[2] His first assignment was in Germany.

After returning from Germany, Peters attended Officer Candidate School and received a commission in 1980.^[3][4] Subsequently, he served with 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry Regiment, then part of the 1st Armored Division.^[5]

Peters spent ten years in Germany working in military intelligence. He later became a Foreign Area Officer, specializing in the Soviet Union. He attended the Command and General Staff College. His last assignment was to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He retired in 1998 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Peters never saw actual combat during his tenure.

Writing career[link]

Peters's first novel was Bravo Romeo, a spy thriller set in West Germany, and was published in 1981. Since then his novels progressed from futuristic scenarios involving the Red Army to contemporary terrorism and failed state issues. His characters are often presented as military mavericks who have the knowledge and courage to tackle problems others cannot or will not. His novel, The War After Armageddon, was released in 2009.

In 2008 he published the non-fiction Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World.

Peters is a regular contributor to the military history magazine, Armchair General Magazine, and he also serves on its Advisory Board.

Peters has published numerous essays on strategy in military journals such as Parameters, Military Review, and Armed Forces Journal, reports for the United States Marine Corps Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, wrote a regular opinion column for the New York Post, and has written essays and columns for USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Monthly and Army magazine. Peters is a member of the Board of Contributors for USA Today's Forum Page, part of the newspaper's Opinion section. He has reported from Iraq, Israel, West Africa and other trouble spots.

Views[link]

Role of United States military[link]

Peters' 1997 article "Constant Conflict"^[6] stated:

There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

In a 2009 article for The Journal of International Security Affairs titled "Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars"^[7] Peters' advocates the ruthless use of United States military power, declaring "If you cannot win clean, win dirty." Peters also raises the idea of directing the United States military to attack journalists. Peters writes, "Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media."^{[citation needed]}

Iraq war[link]

Peters was a strong supporter of the 2003 invasion and ongoing war in Iraq. Defending the war from critics who claimed that Iraq was descending into civil war, he authored a March 5, 2006 piece in the New York Post entitled "Dude, Where's My Civil War?", in which he wrote: "I'm looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can't find it (...) The Iraqi Army has confounded its Western critics, performing extremely well last week. And the people trust their new army to an encouraging degree."^[8] Claims that Iraq was descending into civil war, he wrote, were the politically motivated claims of "irresponsible journalists" who have "staked their reputations on Iraq's failure".

By August 2006, Peters had turned more pessimistic on Iraq, stating in an interview with FrontPageMagazine.com, "civil war is closer than it was (...) The leaders squabble, the death squads rule the neighborhoods." He said that while it would be "too early to walk away from Iraq", the fate of the country was threatened by the US's failure after the invasion to provide adequate troop levels to maintain order, as well as "the Arab genius for screwing things up."^[9]

On November 2, 2006, he wrote in USA Today:

Iraq is failing. No honest observer can conclude otherwise. Even six months ago, there was hope. Now the chances for a democratic, unified Iraq are dwindling fast (...) Iraq could have turned out differently. It didn't. And we must be honest about it. We owe that much to our troops. They don't face the mere forfeiture of a few congressional seats but the loss of their lives. Our military is now being employed for political purposes. It's unworthy of our nation.^[10]

In this piece he also speculated that "only a military coup — which might come in the next few years — could hold the artificial country together" and that "it appears that the cynics were right: Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it."

Following the 2006 US Congressional election, Peters wrote:

It's going to be hard. The political aim of the Democrats will be to continue talking a good game while avoiding responsibility through '08. They'll send up bills they know Bush will veto. And they'll struggle to hide the infighting in their own ranks - Dem unity on this war is about as solid as the unity of Iraq. Now that they've won on the issue, the Dems would like Iraq to just go away. But it won't. And they've got to avoid looking weak on defense, so the military will get more money for personnel, at least. But we won't get a comprehensive plan to deal with Iraq or, for that matter, our global struggle with Islamist terrorists. No matter how many troops we send, we're bound to fail if the troops aren't allowed to fight - under the leadership of combat commanders, not politically attuned bureaucrats in uniform. At present, neither party's leaders want to face the truth about warfare - that it can't be done on the cheap and that war can't be waged without shedding blood.^[11]

Peters was opposed to what became the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 when it was first proposed. In October 2006 he wrote, "the notion of sending more U.S. troops is strategic and practical nonsense. Had the same voices demanded another 100,000-plus troops in 2003 or even 2004, it would have made a profound, positive difference. Now it's too late."^[12] By July 2007, he had changed his mind, writing that U.S. troops were making "serious progress against al-Qaeda-in-Iraq and other extremists", and that while "Iraq's a mess", "we've finally got a general in Baghdad - Dave Petraeus - who's doing things right."^[13]

In August 2007 Peters wrote that a quadruple truck bomb attack in Iraq that killed reportedly 500 individuals was "a sign of al Qaeda's frustration, desperation and fear."^[14]

In January 2008, on the first anniversary of the troop surge, Peters wrote that "the political progress has been remarkable." He added:

Determined to elect a Democrat president, the "mainstream" media simply won't accept our success. "Impartial" journalists find a dark cloud in every silver lining in Iraq. And the would-be candidates themselves continue to insist that we should abandon Iraq immediately - as if time had stood still for the past year - while hoping desperately for a catastrophe in Baghdad before November. These are the pols who insisted that the surge didn't have a chance. And nobody calls 'em on it.^[15]

By 2009, Peters had become much more optimistic about the future of Iraq. In July 2009, a day before the Iraqi Kurdistan legislative election he wrote, "for all of Iraq's remaining problems -- and they're vast -- it looks more and more as if 'Bush's Folly' may work out." He added, "We've all come a long way since the dark days of 2006." He reserved special praise for Jawad al-Bolani, head of the Interior Ministry, whom he called, "in the context of Iraq... a miracle worker." He also praised the Kurdistan election, calling it "a horse-race toward accountability and transparency."^[16]

Redrawing borders and regime change[link]

In a June 2006 article titled "Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look", Peters conducted a thought experiment by changing the borders in the Middle East: "In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism—in some cases, both."^[17]

He has drawn strong criticism for his maps in the countries involved, who viewed these as a direct attack on the integrity of their borders and usually attributed the maps to US Military and US Intelligence services and government, and their future plans for the region, rather than the retired Lieutenant Colonel.^{[citation needed]}

In a February 2008 column, Peters called for giving the majority-Serb enclave in northern Kosovo to Serbia, calling it a "cancerous issue" that "just promises further conflict down the road - like forcing an ex-husband and -wife to share an apartment after a savage divorce."^[18]

Regarding Iraq, he wrote, "might it not have been wiser - as several of us suggested in 2003 - to shake off Europe's vicious legacies and give Kurds their state, Iraqi Shias their state, and the country's Sunni Arabs a rump Iraq to do with as they wished?" Regarding all these countries, he wrote, "We needn't launch an endless war to fix the mess Europeans in pinstriped trousers left us - but we'd damned well better accept that, when we expend blood and treasure to prop up phony states, we're standing on the tracks in front of the speeding train of history."^[18]

In a column for Armchair General Magazine, he wrote in support for regime change in Syria, Iran and Pakistan:

Syria's determination to develop nuclear weapons apes Iran's and North Korea's nuke programs, as well as Pakistan's successful bid to join the club of nuclear powers. ... Given a choice between taking out Osama Bin Laden and his entire leadership network and eliminating renegade nuclear engineers, the latter option might do far more for our long-term security.^[19]

Afghanistan[link]

In February 2009 Peters called for U.S. troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan, writing, "we've mired ourselves by attempting to modernize a society that doesn't want to be — and cannot be — transformed." He continued, "We needed to smash our enemies and leave. Had it proved necessary, we could have returned later for another punitive mission. Instead, we fell into the great American fallacy of believing ourselves responsible for helping those who've harmed us."^[20]

Bowe Bergdahl[link]

Peters expressed sympathy for POW Bowe Bergdahl's family, but speculated (Fox News, July 19, 2009) that Specialist Bergdahl might be "an apparent deserter . . . if he walked away from his post and his buddies in wartime — I don't care how hard it sounds — as far as I'm concerned the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills". He characterized Bergdahl's description (in the Taliban produced video) of U.S. military behavior in Afghanistan as collaboration with the enemy, even if coerced.^[21] Peters called those statements about military policy lies, and doubted existence a girlfriend (Steve Malzberg's radio show, July 22). Bergdahl had said he missed his girlfriend and local media identified her as Monica Lee.^[22][23] Peters also wished him to be reunited with his family, but argued the media glorifies one captured soldier who shamed his unit and lied, while ignoring heroes and casualties (The O'Reilly Factor, July 21).^[24]

Donald Rumsfeld[link]

Ralph Peters was quoted as saying, in regards to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "I am allergic to Rumsfeld. We did a great thing in Iraq, but we did it very badly. He is an extremely talented man but he has the tragic flaw of hubris. His arrogance is unbearable. My friends in uniform just hate him."^[25]

WikiLeaks[link]

In view of WikiLeaks' release of United States diplomatic cables in late 2010, Peters called for the assassination of Julian Assange on FOX News, accusing him of being a cyber-terrorist guilty of crimes against humanity. In this context he claimed that WikiLeaks puts aid workers, human rights workers, journalists and dissidents at risk of torture, assassination and rape.^[26]

Books[link]

Novels[link]

• As Ralph Peters
  • Bravo Romeo - 1981 ISBN 0-399-90097-7
  • Red Army - 1989 ISBN 0-671-67668-7
  • The War in 2020 - 1991 ISBN 0-671-67670-9
  • The Perfect Soldier - 1995 ISBN 0-671-86583-8
  • The Devil's Garden - 1998 ISBN 0-380-97362-6
  • Twilight of Heroes - 1999 ISBN 0-8117-2690-8
  • Traitor - 1999 ISBN 0-380-97641-2
  • Flames of Heaven: A Novel of the End of the Soviet Union - 2003 ISBN 0-8117-2684-3
  • The War After Armageddon - 2009 ISBN 978-0-7653-2355-2
  • The Officers' Club - 2011 ISBN 978-0-7653-2680-5
  • Cain at Gettysburg - 2012
• Abel Jones Series (as "Owen Parry", pseudonym of Ralph Peters)
  • Faded Coat of Blue - 2000 ISBN 0-380-97642-0
  • Shadows of Glory - 2000 ISBN 0-380-97643-9
  • Call Each River Jordan - 2001 ISBN 0-06-018638-0
  • Honor's Kingdom - 2002 ISBN 0-06-018634-8
  • Our Simple Gifts: Civil War Christmas Tales - 2002 ISBN 0-06-001378-8
  • Bold Sons of Erin - 2003 ISBN 0-06-051390-X
  • Strike the Harp!: American Christmas Stories - 2004 ISBN 0-06-057236-1
  • Rebels of Babylon - 2005 ISBN 0-06-051392-6

Nonfiction[link]

• Fighting for the Future: Will America Triumph? - 1999 ISBN 0-8117-0651-6
• Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World - 2002 ISBN 0-8117-0024-0
• Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace - 2003 ISBN 0-8117-0084-4
• New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy - 2005 ISBN 1-59523-011-4
• Never Quit the Fight - 2006 ISBN 0-8117-3328-9, ISBN 978-0-8117-0274-4
• Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century - 2007 ISBN 0-8117-0274-X
• Looking For Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World - 2008 ISBN 0-8117-3410-2
• Endless War - 2010

References[link]

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ralph Peters

• Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East” (Centre for Research on Globalization)
• Interview on New Glory at the Pritzker Military Library
• Interview on Wars of Blood and Faith
• Constant Conflict
• In Depth interview with Peters, August 3, 2008