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Site contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com
..rejoice. A long overdue tactical version of this site is now available. (Designed for PDAs.) Still some bugs to work out* - this took 5 minutes to create using Scriptygoddess code.
Did the same for Mudville. If you've got a pda version of your site available leave a link in comments - I want to compile a "Tactical" blogroll. If you don't have one, what better way to spend 5 minutes out of your weekend?
*For instance - the most recent post does not appear - not sure why yet.
Forgive me if I'm skeptical Hawk, but I've got to concur with Salamander here. Hollywood is in love with the idea of the military destroying the fragile human mind. Hell they couldn't even pull off a decent Gulf War flick without A) sending soldiers on a stupid treasure hunt (Three Kings) or B) glorifying the diary of a punk kid and terrible Marine (Jarhead).
We had to navigate through Born on the Fourth of July, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket before we were treated to We Were Soldiers. Maybe in another 30 years and another 3-4 crappy "military ruined my life" flicks we'll see a decent Gulf War II film.
And if we do, may I be the first to suggest turning Marines in the Garden of Eden into a screenplay?
Greyhawk, I don't know if I share your optimism. I will admit that with Hollywood I am gun shy, but looking at the trailer what we have is a movie that of the four main characters that come back, one becomes a nut job with a gun facing the police, one explodes in anger "you weren't there" at one in what looks like a series of dead-end jobs, one is having trouble being Mom again, and the leader (S.L. Jackson) looks to have a son who is being a spoiled anti-war pain in the a55. I hope you are right, but this has a 70s replay written all over it. I hope I am wrong.
How about a note on *why* we do all this, anyway?
The future.
Holly Aho, Soldiers' Angel extraordinaire and one of the busiest ladies in the MilBlog world has delivered a beautiful new baby girl--Vivianne Allison. Her four brothers are adjusting to having a sister... - FuzzybearLioness
"Home of the Brave" - looks like a possible winner - but I expect you won't have trouble finding a seat in any theater where this plays. Not the sort of "escape" Americans want - I say the box office will be less then that for Jackass II or Fahrenheit 9/11.
Patricia Brooks, a 68 year-old grandmother, is on a hunger strike. It's her way of protesting Operation Iraqi Freedom. If I were grandma, I would be a bit concerned about this:
Day after day Brooks becomes a little weaker, and during a recent interview she had difficulty focusing her attention.No one, she said, including her son in Dallas, Ore., is trying to talk her out of her fast. (He did not return a reporter's phone calls.)
Just saying...
Some retired and currennt generals are blathering about the Magical Bigger Army again.
The 2000 Census lists
22.4 Million aged 40-44(1980 prime recruiting pool)
22.7 Million aged 35-39 (1985 prime recruiting pool)
20.5 million aged 30-34 (1990 prime recruiting pool)
19.3 million aged 25-29 (1995 prime recruiting pool)
18.9 million aged 20-24 (2000 prime recruiting pool)
in 1985 there were 22.7 million in the prime recruiting pool. In 2000, there were only 18.9 Million in the prime recruiting pool.
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_QTP1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U
...from Iraq, via Haider Ajina. (One of the stories I referenced in an earlier post.)
The Pentagon has relented somewhat to persistent requests from Senate Republicans who want timely notification of military medals for bravery in the war on terror so they can share the heroic achievements with the American people and counter negative press coverage.And one possible explanation for those objections:
<...>
The Pentagon now will notify lawmakers of a person's name, rank and address, as well as the award, but in just three categories: the Medal of Honor, the services' individual crosses such as the Army's Distinguished Service Cross, and the Silver Star. The military has awarded 400 of those medals for heroism in Afghanistan and Iraq, as of the spring. But Congress will not be informed of medals such as the Bronze Star or Purple Heart.
<...>
Mr. Santorum a year ago won approval of a nonbinding sense of the Senate resolution in the defense authorization bill to urge the Pentagon to publicize awards via Congress. But the measure failed to remain in the final bill negotiated with the House. A Senate staffer said the military services objected.
"The upside is to celebrate heroism, and that has a definite benefit for our society," Mr. Carr said. "The downside would be that facts shared in celebrating would increase the likelihood of the person or family being targeted."
This is the most sober discussion I've seen on this subject on the Internet.
Which, unfortunately, ain't saying much...
That linked article includes an anti-Rumsfeld quote from General Batiste, who has become the media go-to guy for anti-Rumsfeld quotes. The man is obsessed.
Case in point, the Washington Post just ran an article regarding a soldier who was under Batiste's command in Iraq, who shot a flex-cuffed civilian in the custody of another soldier. He was court-martialed, found guilty, sentenced, and dishonorably discharged, but now his father is trying to clear his son's name.
The Post interviewed Batiste. Here's what he had to say about the case:
The general who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq and convened Edward's court-martial, retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste, said he has faith in the military justice system. "If I were Dad, I would be focused on Donald Rumsfeld and his leadership, which took our great military to war without a strategy, with insufficient troops on the ground, which allowed chaos to rein in early 2004," Batiste said.Which I suspect is also pretty much what he has to say about this weekend's football games, or whether he prefers coffee or tea.
Let's get this fact on the table right up front: the presence of 150,000-odd US troops in Iraq has not deterred an al Qaeda invasion.
But...
I doubt 500,000 would have either. Suicidal jihaddis, fueled by religious fervor, simply aren't concerned with the numbers. Their goal is victory in the long term, and many are quite willing to die in the short term. Most probably have no idea of the number of "Zionist Crusaders" in Iraq - and probably wouldn't believe the number if they did. Note that their recruiting tapes, videos, sermons, and internet diatribes never mention the "small" number of coalition troops in Iraq as part of the incentive to join the cause.
In short, we simply aren't fighting a numbers war - the enemy ain't got the numbers to hit our smallest outposts with any degree of success. They do have enough people to launch mortars and run like hell back into the mosque, or plant IEDs along convoy routes during the night. None of these folks would be doing anything different if they had three times the current number of US troops to target. In fact given those circumstances I'd say it's likely the numbers of insurgents might in fact be larger - with a higher percentage of involvement by actual Iraqis. (I grant that the half-million shooters solution might have stopped Sunnis from killing Shiites - and vice versa - but only by uniting them against us.) I submit this is all at least as valid (and provable) a hypothesis as any claim to the opposite effect.
What we'd have - had we put those half million shooters in early on - would be a half million shooters there today. And the same folks crying loudly about "not enough troops" would be crying loudly that Shinseki was a Rumsfeld stooge who didn't have the 'nads to point out that we were following the same recipe for disaster we used in Vietnam, or that the Russians used in Afghanistan. And the "trying to wage war on the cheap" claim would be replaced by "making huge profits for defense industry cronies".
At some point - hopefully in the not-too-distant future, we'll have the Iraqi forces trained and equipped to the best of our ability - at least to a point of diminishing returns. At this time we'll depart (a more complex process than most understand) or yours truly becomes anti-war right quick. But the "last plane out" will be fired upon, and Saddam (from his cell) , al Sadr, al Qaeda, John Murtha, and a host of others will declare victory. (This last bit bothers me not at all. Recall that Saddam declared victory after Desert Storm.)
One could argue that "we didn't have a plan" - but that's demonstrably false. We had a plan that like all previous war plans in the history of the world did not survive first contact with the enemy. But that's another debate altogether, and infinitely more valid then the shudda cudda woulda, too few troops blah blah.
There are some signs of hope - most not reported in American media (at least in election season). More on that later, as it's quite late, and I'm quite busy these days preparing to return to Iraq.
I gotta admit that during my time in DC in '02-'03 I didn't hear anyone say "the army will disappear and a dedicated insurgency campaign will show up with splodeydopes". None. The closest was guys like Michael O'Hanlon, who said we needed people for WMD destruction and security.
I still can't figure out what the unprintable happened for the Garner group. One datum: I casually mentioned (I was an LT at the time) the Garner organization to a different service's three star who was Plugged In right before this, during the World's Longest Rush To War. That three star didn't know anything about it and I wound up doing a little presentation, impromptu, for the man and his boss. This seems to me to be indicative of a Problem--but not one that Rumsfeld himself would have known about.
I still like Jason van Steenwyk's take on the not-enough-troops thing.
As noted here:
The Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia's only aircraft carrier, will join the Northern Fleet by the end of the year after modernization, the Navy's chief said Wednesday.
***
The Navy commander also said that several Su-33 Flanker-D fighters assigned to the aircraft carrier would return to the ship after a brief technical overhaul. The vessel is capable of carrying up to 26 fixed-wing fighters and 24 helicopters.
***
"The Russian Navy will operate several aircraft carriers in future," Masorin said in February, adding that Admiral Kuznetsov would probably remain in service until 2030.
Secretary Rumsfeld has apparently made a startling admission:
"Well, I think that anyone who looks at it with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight has to say that there was not an anticipation that the level of insurgency would be anything approximating what it is," Rumsfeld told CNN...Actually, I seem to remember Gen. Shinseki anticipated what was needed pretty well. I admit, I'm not a big Rumsfeld fan; as a CENTCOM staff weenie in 2003-'04, I didn't work directly with the Secretary, but I worked with people whose bosses got taskers directly from the SecDef in meetings, and none of them liked him very much either.
The Submarine Force had a similar personality in Admiral Rickover; quite a few people hold that while he was indispensible in the '50s and '60s, but had outlived his usefulness by the '70s. Likewise, I think history will judge that Rumsfeld was the right man for Afghanistan, but the wrong one for Iraq. (Of course, I recently finished reading Cobra II and Fiasco, so those books might have warped my fragile little mind.)
Standing by for incoming...
Anybody with so many alternate spellings can't be right.
al Qaeda, al Qeda, al Qada?
Clausewitz, Clausowitz, Clausevitz?
Coincidence?
The U.S. Army is investigating allegations that women in a Kentucky National Guard unit posed nude for pictures with their M-16s and other military equipment, and if so, whether they should be sanctioned for bringing discredit to the military, officials said.
...
"This is not the kind of activity condoned by the command leadership of the Kentucky National Guard," he said.The newspaper had been independently provided with a compact disc containing 232 photos of at least a half-dozen nude and seminude women in various poses, including kissing one another, posing suggestively with military rifles, and covering their breasts with American flag decals. An accompanying e-mail said the women photographed were from the Kentucky Guard.
Go Guard!
The Editors at The New York Times write an over-the-top, emotional and dishonest critique of the pending Antiterrorism Bill.
The Editors say a cynical (and by implication, criminal) Bush Administration is driving Congress “over a cliff,” and by fear-mongering and intimidation, forcing them to pass “a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.”
This is a war we fight, not that that’s at all assumed or accepted by the NY Times. Yet, to the Editors, this is entirely about extending complete judicial, constitutional, and Geneva Conventions rights and obligations upon a class of detainees that don’t even fit criteria for legitimate Prisoners of War, let alone prisoners of US law enforcement entities.
It’s all “mindless politics,” with an evil Administration forcing “ghastly ideas about antiterrorism” upon an “irresponsible Congress.”
Dear Lord, what adjectives will the NY Times have left come their dreaded but much anticipated American Kristalnacht? (Or did that happen with the defeat of John Kerry in 2004, I might have missed it with all the public mourning.)
The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.According to the Times, we will make American Troops less safe – they’ll be without all that super strong, respected by Tyrants and Dictators Everywhere Geneva Conventions Bullet and Bomb Proof Armor. The Times laments that the Bill will do lasting damage to our nation of laws – despite that the Bush Administration has done far less in fighting this war than did FDR or Truman during WWII, Hoover or FDR during the Depression, and certainly, Lincoln during the Civil War. (I guess Lincoln’s suspension of Habeus Corpus did lasting damage too, but doesn’t lasting mean it doesn’t heal or correct itself after the war is won?)
If we had to fight WWII (or any prior war) by the rules demanded by the NY Times, and the Democratic Party and ACLU allies, we’d have lost. There would be no Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (there’d be no Jews left), and the sun would have set on Democracy and liberty and Western Civilization. The elites of Hyannis and Beacon Hill and Beverly Hills would no doubt be able to concentrate their love of humanity on non fossil fuels, solar and wind power, and the prevailing wages of the working classes, without messy concerns of National Security. Come to think on it, you can understand their sympathy for the 7th Century Jihadis. (“Finishing the job Hitler started.”)
(Much more commentary over at Dadmanly.)
Sheesh Grim, why can't you just make fun of his appearance like everyone else?
Years ago now, I wrote a piece called "Clausewitz and the Triangle" that I think holds up pretty well even now. For example, the points about Clausewitz's "culminating point of victory" are neatly reprised in this week's declass al Qaeda letter. This time, it's al Qaeda itself raising the concerns.
The Department of State is slamming Clausewitz because the real target is their chief enemy, the Department of Defense. The point we are meant to take away is that the military are largely fools detached from reality, and we should trust diplomats instead. As usual, they are more interested in the turf war in Washington than in winning the real war elsewhere.
The military, however, includes both Special Forces and traditional forces. Where is the component at State that understands anything other than their mainline orthodoxy? It isn't Clausewitz, but it's orthodoxy all the same. The military tolerates diversity of thought and inquiry, from the National War College to the hiring of contractors to provide independent thinking on sensitive matters like intelligence.
State's opinion is welcome, also, but if they think the military isn't interested in culture and history, they're not paying any attention at all. Half the people I've worked with as a contractor were hired precisely because of their expertise in Arab cultures, or because they were historians. State has to know that, because there is interagency sharing of information and analysis. That makes me think the whole attack is really about trying to win political points, and turf control.
Which, to bring us full circle, is one of the points from "Clausewitz and the Triangle." The political struggles within the US are one of the chief sources of friction we have to face. That goes for intra-executive skirmishes as well as the fights between the executive and the legislature, or the two main political parties.
Goldberg, waxing Buckley, nailed that exact point earlier today Dad:
When confronted with the assertion that the Soviet Union and the United States were moral equivalents, William F. Buckley responded that if one man pushes an old lady into an oncoming bus and another man pushes an old lady out of the way of a bus, we should not denounce them both as men who push old ladies around.
Heh, ain't that the truth.
Would any reader of this site be watching CBS Evening News? Perhaps unlikely. But a piece ran recently that was worthy of attention.
Natan Sharansky offered a powerful antidote to the hysteria that has overwhelmed any reasonable debate over definitions of torture and treatment of unlawful combatants, in a freeSpeech segment at CBS Evening News.
Mr. Sharansky has, in my opinion, “absolute moral authority” on the subject of torture, what it is and what it is not. This authority rests on his long, personal experience, suffering at the hands of a regime fluent in the many expressions of torture and repression, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Mr. Sharansky makes a point completely lost in the rhetoric of critics of this Administration:
Those who would use abuses at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay to accuse America of being no different than the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or Sadaam's regime have lost all sense of moral clarity.The many and strident critics of this Administration are unlikely to agree with, or even consider, Mr. Sharansky’s caution, having not forgiven him for making The Case for Democracy.America is different because your citizens can protest without going to prison. America is different because your courts can defend rights and your press can expose injustice. America is different because your Congress can hold hearings and because your people can hold your leaders accountable. America is different because America is free.
Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Sharansky.
(Cross-posted at Dadmanly.)
Chap wrote:
Hair? Dude. That guy's neck is out of standard...
He does have a purty poofy uniform. And here I thought he was a Prussian General, not a French Admiral.
Hair? Dude. That guy's neck is out of standard...
My first thought after reading it? "Harumph. Intel weenies." But you know me, I have more to say than just that.
There are certain years in our nation's history in which numerous "moments" occur in multiple chains of events that significantly impact the subsequent timeline. Such years are identifiable only in in hindsight - the reverberations of then-seemingly minor issues require time to expand, much the opposite way that reverberations of seemingly major issues du jour often tend to diminish with the passage of years, months, days, or even hours. I think just enough time has passed to identify 1998 as one such seminal year.
The connection between Iraq and the "war on terror" was obvious back then - at least for those of us fighting the war. Ditto the rising threat of Osama bin Laden - something that was occurring in plain sight. But no one paid much attention, as on the domestic front the impeachment of President Clinton stirred political resentments that would grow unimpeded by war and other international events to today's seemingly unprecedented level of rancor.
There are those among us who like to believe that history began in November, 2000, or September, 2001. Even some of us over age 12 probably look back on '98 as the good ol' days. In many ways they were - "peace dividends" and "dot com booms" still appeared strong - but in the midst of the party an ominous background noise was growing, even if not yet to a level of distraction.
As much as I hate to interupt this Clausewitz love-fest, Pinch Paisley of Instapinch has some excellent coverage of the final farewell to the F-14 Tomcat at Oceana Naval Air Station. This stuck with me:
As I tell my students during my Combat Identification lectures, if you see a Tomcat anywhere in the world now, it is Iranian and can be positively identified as a bogey - a hostile - a bad guy. No ifs, ands, buts or maybes about it.
Roger that dude.
Sorry Chap, I don't trust anyone whose hair is that far out of standard.
He must be part cat because people keep saying he's dead, then all of a sudden people talk Clausewitz again. My favorite article about this is by Christopher Bassford. It's subtitled "A Polemic".
More interesting references here, too.
Karl von C's usefulness died with the cold war, back when states fought other states according to his "trinity."
Those were the good old days John. One big lump of Soviet armor pressing down on Europe that we could lob tactical nukes at. Now we've got a bunch of would be mini-prophets with dynamite strapped to their chest bringing down a millenium of civilized warfare because the West and Israel hurt their feelings.
Strange times.
Or not. Depends on how many (and of what persuasion) of you guys choose to pop over to consider the issue of the applicability of the Clausewitzian Weltanschauung (woooo, big word, Donovan) to today's wars and rumors of wars, and the impacts thereon.
Vice those nice, neat, tidy Total Wars we as a military prefer because they are sooo much simpler. Anyone remember how easy and simple (in essence) the General Defense Plan for Germany was? Civilians? So what? We weren't going to live that long - it was gonna be the National Guard's problem when they showed up after REFORGERing in and mopping up what was left of Europe.
I promise, we aren't slinging words like that double-u thingy up there around profligately a lot.
To Jesse Macbeth et cetera we add a Sargeant Chavez.
He's here to tell you about "9/11 Truth". He says he flew into Kabul in a C-5 that stopped bullets (wow! A bulletproof C-5!) two and a half weeks after 9/11. As part of a "Veterans For 9/11 Truth" thing.
Riiiiight.
Cue the Blues Brothers: "I hate Illinois Nazis."
And I just now got emails from the guys reading the NYT trying to school me on what the NIE "said"...
Heh.
Finally. Without gratuitous self-promotion or accompanying body-count commentary, someone in the major media has begun to recognize heroes from the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters as simply that: Heroic Americans honored as such.
MSNBC has released the first of what we hope will be many video segments honoring those who've fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The first segment is on Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith, posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions.
At ThreatsWatch, we will be building a page to host all of the vignettes in one place for archiving in our Faces of Courage section.
Perhaps we could send MSNBC an annotated link to BlackFive's Someone You Should Know. Please, encourage your readers to let them know that doing the right thing is greatly appreciated and that there is a need for more. Many, many more. Tell them by name.
Encourage MSNBC to produce and release more of these by emailing MSNBC at heroes (at) msnbc (dot) com.
The Corner tips us off to the posting of the key judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), portions of which were leaked in distorted partisan hit pieces this week.
I just finished listening to NPR’s National Security reporter basically making the lame assessment that, with only the key judgments available (vice the entire NIE), it wasn’t possible to conclude whether or not the media reporting the leaks as “Iraq has created more terrorism” is impossible.
Contrary to NPR, I think the conclusion is pretty obvious. I can’t get to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) site, they’re obviously overwhelmed, but based on the findings read in the NPR report, you can see the way in which anti-Iraqi war media would “connect the dots.”
These are paraphrased from memory:
Al Qaeda and their sympathizers are using events in Iraq to exploit rage among disaffected Muslim youth, and using the war in Iraq for recruiting efforts. A new generation of Jihadists are training themselves in terrorist techniques in Iraq.Since true believers know that George W. Bush has created the anti-US animus and turned the world, Muslims especially, against us, by doctrine that means any new terrorists were created by our war in Iraq. Since we don’t get any credit for killing terrorists or disrupting their operations – heck, we can’t even get credit for likely kills like OBL – logically that means Iraq has meant more terrorists and terrorism.
Foolish little men drive these issues, including the same disaffected Generals that the DNC has trotted out again this week to call Secretary Rumsfeld “incompetent.” By pretense or studied ignorance, they refuse to acknowledge that the Jihadis want to fight us all out, and they will grasp whatever symbol of offense that is at hand to motivate their followers. So it was for Carter, so it was for Reagan, so it was for Bush 41, so it was for Clinton, and so it is for Bush 43.
(Cross-posted at Dadmanly)
On Friday, I had dinner with some wounded troops from Walter Reed.
A Coast Guard Helo doing 135MPH? Where is our Homeland Security expert? This just doesn't look right.
The U.S. Coast Guard officially assumed responsibility for air intercept operations ... Coast Guard HH-65C helicopters and crews will be responsible for intercepting unauthorized aircraft which fly into an air defense identification zone surrounding Washington.
Thanks to Castle Argghhh!!! for the link to Thomas P.M. Barnett's precise smack down on the partially released NIE report here, for it contains the thoughts of many of us who have had to deal with intel estimates:
This analysis is typical intell stuff: obvious, useless, and playing into a do-nothing mind-set that here says, "Do nothing to piss off the terrorists!"Hey, intel weenies and followers of the revelations of the NIE by the NYT and others- even the Pope can get the "terrorists" upset with a few choice words.
What really tees these bad guys up is that we exist. And are free. And are happy.
Stick that in your next report.
And read Barnett.
UPDATE: Spook86 has some thoughts here, here and here.
I found a picture of my father in 1945. He had just joined the Navy, and was home for a bit before shipping out to the Pacific on the USS Bedoing Strait (CVE 116). When I laid it next to one of mine from Afghanistan in 2004, I was struck by a similarity or two. See for yourself here.
Some bad things can happen......you might be outed as a fan of the USAF.
"The RAF have been utterly, utterly useless," Loden was quoted as having said, referring to two instances involving Harrier warplanes during close ground combat.I would love to have been in the office of his Battalion Commander's office when the call from London came in....."A female Harrier pilot 'couldn't identify the target,' fired two phosphorous rockets that just missed our own compound so that we thought they were incoming RPGs, and then strafed our perimeter, missing the enemy by 200 meters," he wrote, according to British news reports. An RPG is a rocket-propelled grenade.
In contrast to the Royal Air Force, Loden said, the U.S. Air Force had been "fantastic."
I am not sure why we are seeing this furor about Osama being dead. Everyone who follows "The World's Only Reliable Newspaper" has already been informed that Osama got caught last month. Just click below...
CLINTON:Ok, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Bin laden had anything to do with black hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew al Qaeda was a growing concern in October of 1993.
Somehow I think the Iran-Contra hearings made sure that anyone who even had a clue as to what was going on in the Middle East retired or left the service. I seriously doubt that all the souls who had a clue are no longer living.
Guantanamo inmates turn to library books
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Men held captive at this U.S. military base are confined to small cells, but their minds can wander far and wide by reading philosophy, history, murder mysteries — even Harry Potter.
...
Nonfiction — particularly philosophy, biographies and Arabic history — is most popular, the librarians say. But fiction is also big. Popular authors include Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese-American; Agatha Christie; and J.K. Rowling, who penned the Harry Potter series about an English wizard in training.
Not all is Muggles and Butterbeer for our erstwhile wizards:
Some detainees have tried to use books to pass messages to each other, comprising some of the 414 "unauthorized communications" that were intercepted at Guantanamo during the past year, military officials say.
Don't worry though, those writing clandestine message get their library privileges revoked...for a week.
And finally, not everybody is a fan of the young Hogwarts student:
In June 2005, an interrogator was observed trying to wear down a detainee by reading a Harry Potter book aloud. The prisoner turned his back and clapped his hands over his ears.
Having read Andrew Sullivan's increasingly lunatic rantings on the subject (Harry Potter, I don't know what he has to say about torture), I can sympathise.
Speaking of military-themed movies, anyone seen Flyboys yet? I proposed seeing it to the family this weekend - but one sharp daughter pointed out it may be a chick-flick in disguise ala the abysmal "Pearl Harbor". This review suggests otherwise, and I'm inclined to see it on the big screen rather than wait for DVD.
Anyone with a first-hand report?
Update: If the direct link to the review fails, here's the main page.
And here's a bio of Eugene Bullard, the inspiration for one of the characters in the film. He flew for France, but the US wouldn't have him.
This shell crater is part of the "first enemy shelling of a U.S. mainland military installation since the War of 1812." It occurred at Fort Stevens, Orgeon.
The answer as to who fired the shots is found here.
Check out this trailer for Frank Miller's 300 --a film version of his graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae.
Anyone who is remotely familiar with the Battle of Thermopylae will seriously enjoy this trailer.
Pop the champagne, plan the homecomings. This means VICTORY.
OBL is reported as being dead ....again..
Does it matter?
Retired Admiral Lyons makes a good pitch that the great purple albatros know as Goldwater-Nichols needs to be tossed to the dustbin of history.
The unhappy conclusion one must draw from an examination of the Joint Chiefs and the war in Iraq is that their historic function as the principal body providing military advice is defunct. The Joint Chiefs as a corporate body have become irrelevant.I'm sold....then again I knew that years ago when I was told that it was more important for an old Dept. Head of mine had to get his "Joint" ticket NOW on shore duty soaking up O2 in Norfolk as opposed to going back to Sea to a hard fill - a hard fill he wanted to do that would actually contribute to the war - and not build PPT slides that do nothing but justify a bloated Cold War staff structure....but I digress.
13th Sustainment Command - Expeditionary took over for 3rd Corp Support Command this week.
If I google around for 3rd COSCOM , I find a DOD transcript where the Commander of 3rd COSCOM commands "around 20,000 Soldiers".
If I google around for 13 Sustainment Command - Expeditionary, I find a Wikipedia Entry that puts the number of Soldiers in 13 SC(E) at around 6,000 Soldiers.
Do I need to add in the 25 ID Sustainment Brigade and the 1st Cav Sustainment Brigade and whatever the Marine Equivalent of a Sustainment Brigade is to come to the 3rd COSCOM "around 20,000 Soldiers"?
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is in town under the cloud created by his wholesale release of al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners as part of the deal made with the same crew in North Waziristan. An 'administration official' said, "We know they are releasing some individuals. The $64,000 question is: Who are they?"
When Pakistan's president arrives here on Friday, he will be grilled about his decision this month to release more than 1,000 prisoners, some of whom are suspected to be high-value Al Qaeda operatives.
Well, it's actually way more than 1,000. A knowledgable and reliable source is convinced that the original 2,500 figure is accurate. And they were released ahead of the news, not after, and are now lost to the ether. When the news originally broke, the reporting was 'released' in the past tense. Suddenly it's future tense? Hmmmm...
The problem for the White House is that America does not know which prisoners were released as part of a ceasefire agreement the Pakistani military signed with tribal leaders in the border province of Waziristan. Pakistani officials have yet to share the names with their American counterparts, according to an intelligence official and an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
I am not quite sure what to make of that, such a long time after the AQ/Taliban attackers and beheaders were released (Danny Pearl's murderers were among those released). I never heard anyone disputing the original 2,500 report a week ago.
So why now a 1,000 figure? And claims of not knowing who was released?
Is appeasing an in-town Musharraf or just playing nice on the short list of possibilities? Appeasing may be a strong word...but it sure is frustrating.
Another review of The Blog of War, this one up at The American Prospect.
Lt. General Trexler the 7th Air Force Commander has issued an ultimatum to the Korean government over the lack of a bombing range in Korea:
The U.S. Air Force stationed in Korea has threatened to withdraw if the dispute over a shooting range for U.S. jets isn't resolved in one month.Speaking at the Gyeonggi provincial government office Thursday, Air Force commander Lieutenant General Gary Trexler said the U.S. might have to deploy its forces outside the Korean Peninsula.
The deadline for the ultimatum is October 20th, which is the date when the bilateral Security Consultative Meeting opens.
Here’s the template so familiar to the New York Times, that their editors and reporters feel compelled to use it for every story about the military.
Strains are Severe!So is it any wonder, when you come to the end of an article based on this TemplateTM, that you find yourself asking, what was all that about?
But not so bad just yet.
We may have to take drastic action immediately!
But maybe not so drastic, and maybe we can wait a year or two, and do something about it in a couple of years.
The latest example of NYT mal-journalism was this scare-mongering report about ongoing considerations of additional National Guard activations to meet Active Duty military commitments.
Let’s walk through the template, shall we?
At the risk of giving too much attention to the people behind this film, supporters of our Military need to beware of a just-released propaganda piece, Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers. Produced by Brave New Films, the film is directed by Robert Greenwald, who in a similar vein produced a propaganda hit piece against Walmart, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed and Uncovered.
This film was brought to my attention by what I assume is one of the film’s publicists. A cursory review of the film’s website aroused immediate suspicion, further confirmed by postings on the site’s blog. These posts referenced all manner of coordinated events with Democratic Congress people, and are heavily laden with partisan invective about how the Republicans need to be “exposed,” and other evidence of proactive attempts to tie the film to Democratic Party talking points. (Culture of corruption, all about oil, Halliburton, real support for the troops, etc.)
Having deployed to Iraq, I am amazed and perhaps somewhat concerned over the breadth and depth of outsourcing in the Military. But I know that many factors played into this three decade old process, not how chummy President Bush or Vice President Cheney are with major military services contracting companies.
These corporations and companies that provide services for the US Military, or for that matter, implement projects for the Iraqi Government, are among the largest and most professional service organizations in the world. They employ many ex-military, they have been engaged to perform services the US Government has decided over time to outsource, and they are not war profiteers in any sense intended by the participants or political and financial backers of this propaganda.
Callimachus at Winds of Change recently reported some moving, first hand testimony
from his friend Kat, a Contractor who providing project auditing and oversight of development and reconstruction projects in Iraq. Kat expressed extreme frustration with media non-reporting of reconstruction efforts, and the failure of mainstream media (MSM) perceiving any newsworthiness of the tremendous amount of effort and good work being done, against high risks and extreme circumstances.
More commentary oevr at Dadmanly.
The first of the Littoral Combat Ships, Freedom, is about to be christened by Medal of Honor winner Paul Ray Smith's wife, as set out here.
And one of the potential weapons systems for the LCS, the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System, is discussed.
My usual Friday aggregation here.
"Gentlemen, please go look at the News."
Kidnappers Using Victims As 'Suicide' Bombers
Insurgents booby-trap cars of abducted, Iraq officials say
By Associated Press
BAGHDAD — Insurgents are now using kidnapping victims as unwitting “suicide” bombers — seizing them, booby-trapping their cars without their knowledge, then releasing them only to blow up the vehicles by remote control, the Iraqi Defense Ministry warned Thursday.
It was unclear from the Defense Ministry's statement whether the insurgents are using kidnapping victims because they are having difficulty finding recruits for suicide missions. U.S. military officials have said insurgents often tape or handcuff a suicide driver's hands to a car, or bind his foot to the gas pedal, to ensure that he does not back out at the last minute. The remains of such hands and feet have been found at blast sites.
“According to our intelligence information, recent car-bomb explosions targeting checkpoints and public places have nothing to do with (traditional) terrorist operations,” the Defense Ministry said in its statement.
It said that first “a motorist is kidnapped with his car. They then booby-trap the car without the driver knowing. Then the kidnapped driver is released and threatened to take a certain road.”
The kidnappers follow the car and when the unwitting victim “reaches a checkpoint, a public place, or an army or police patrol, the criminal terrorists following the driver detonate the car from a distance.”
Lex has a well argued post. As a man who tends to fat without extraordinary effort, I have often wondered where the folks are who should be using the exact same arguments supporting, for example, that number of linguists thrown out of the military for failing the choke-n-rope.
There's more to the issue, of course, and Lex is not touching on that on purpose as he explains it. But the transparent nature of some of these stunts is pretty entertaining.
Cafe Ground Zero is scheduled to be torn down.
Now the Russians will have to target their nukes at a different Arlington eating establishment.
I recommend Hardees.
Got my first call from the Pentagon today arising out of some email advice I had given to an 0-5. Good times.
Gays in the military? A "right to serve"?
Openly gay students Jessica Arvidson, Matt Hill Comer, Alex Nini and Stacey Booe tried to enlist in the U.S. Army this morning in an effort to challenge the 13-year-old “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy as part of a 30-city project called the Right to Serve campaign.They weren’t allowed to enlist and then took part in a sit-in along with several supporters inside the Army Recruiting Center on Merritt Drive in Greensboro.
Booe left the sit-in after police said there would be arrests if they didn’t leave. The other three students and five other supporters were taken away in handcuffs.
Oh, God, not that again.
Hey, I’m really impressed with this Hugo Chavez guy.
No really, he makes a lot of sense, and I think we should act on a couple of his suggestions immediately.
First of all, he accurately described the United Nations (UN):
Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.So, he proposes that the UN be created anew:
And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.Best of all, he offers to move the useless, Anti-American entity to a locale much more hospital to the dictators, kleptocrats, sexual predators, and other corrupt elites who so thoroughly enjoy free reign and lawlessness in the Big Apple:
And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.This is a win win win situation! No more sulpherous reek for the Gentleman from Venezuela.
I don’t know if it will work – if we closed the UN in NYC, my guess is half of the Royal Court (UN delegates) would seek diplomatic asylum in the US just to stay in Manhattan.
Meanwhile, let us go ahead and create something more humble, and suited no doubt to our evil selves: a union of free and democratic governments to fulfill to true and rightful charter of the organization formerly know as the United Nations.
I’m with Chavez – get the UN out of the US.
(Cross-posted at Dadmanly)
UPDATE: Okay, a day's worth of completely unrelated vitriol exhausts even my patience. Comments now closed. Thanks to any and all who tried to reason with the troll. WW, as ever thanks for your attention. Someday we must send a bill to your analyst for the outside consultations.
Former President Bill Clinton, interviewed by NPR and reported by Reuters, casually insults the US Government and President Bush.
"The president says he's just trying to get the rules clear about how far the CIA can go when they're when they whacking these people around in these secret prisons," Clinton said in NPR's "Morning Edition" interview, recorded on Wednesday.That just gets him started, he further alleges:
"If you go around passing laws that legitimize a violation of the Geneva Convention and institutionalize what happened at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, we're going to be in real trouble," he said.
More commentary over at Dadmanly.
LOS ANGELES - A man accused of collecting intelligence for Saddam Hussein's regime during the 1990s was indicted on charges of failing to register as an agent of a foreign government, authorities said Wednesday.William Shaoul Benjamin, 64, of Los Angeles also faces charges of making false statements and conspiracy, according to the FBI.
Codenamed "9211," Benjamin allegedly worked with the Iraqi Intelligence Service between 1993 and 2001, infiltrating groups and organizations considered hostile to Saddam's government and relaying information to his Iraqi handlers. Prosecutors refused to say which groups he allegedly monitored.
by DJ Elliott, IS1(SW), USN(Ret)
The Facilities Protection Service (FPS) is an undertrained, ill-equipped, militia-inflitrated and uncoordinated force of 144,000. The FPS as it was originaly formed and trained was intended as a quick way to put "boots on the ground" and it has grown to a size greater than the Iraqi Army. They were unvetted personnel (officialy under MOI) under 27 different commands (ministries) that were given five days training, a pistol and a uniform. They are nothing more than rent-a-cops and they operate as 27 seperate para-military armies (militias) without adequate supervision, training or control. However, this force is in the process of re-training, reorganization, resubordination, vetting and redesignation that has been ongoing since the Fall of 2005.
