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Marines in Africa lean forward

by Jonn Lilyea••20

The other day we talked about the 150 Marines who were moved from Spain to Djibouti in anticipation of their being needed for helping the 40 Army troops assisting in the evacuation of about 50 Americans in the Sudan. Today, Stars & Stripes reports that a platoon of those Marines were moved to Uganda;

“This forward posturing provides the Combatant Commander additional options and the ability to more quickly respond, if required, to help protect U.S. personnel and facilities,” U.S. Africa Command said in a statement.

AFRICOM said this contingent of some 40 Marines and a KC-130J aircraft are now in Entebbe, the capital of Uganda.

The KC-130J transport plane has airborne assault capabilities, and is also used for medevac, search and rescue, and aerial refueling.

“These movements were made with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Ugandan authorities,” AFRICOM said.

S&S is calling the Marine unit “A Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response unit” that was mobilized when four SEALs were injured during the rescue operation in the Sudan last weekend. All four of those SEALs are now in the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

According to the article, Americans are spread throughout South Sudan, so this may take a while.

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20 thoughts on “Marines in Africa lean forward”

  4. I think that everyone US passport should be stamped with the words YOU TRAVEL OUTSIDE OF THE USA AT YOUR OWN RISK. The US Military will not come to your rescue if you are arrested or kidnapped or marooned by a natural disaster.
    Now that that has been dispensed with all of the people who work at the NSA should know that my prefered method of birth control is condoms. I can say that openly because I am not Catholic. I also think that this liberal notion of privacy is highly over rated. In fact I think that NSA should inform the Pope whenever its employees accidently discover that catholics are using birth control. The Pope has a right to know who in his flock are not living up to their obligations.
    Cathholic teachings on birth control are very clear. If you do not want to follow them the Pope or his Bishops should have the opportunity to ex communicate you.
    Privacy is a euphamism for secrecy. The knowledge that secrecy is a poison to a democratic society has been known by
    thoughtful men such as Thomas Paine and William Jennings Bryan for a very long time. People of good will do not have
    very much to hide. Such people may not want others to know about their hemmroid problems or migraines but I can not imagine that the US government wants to be overloaded with irrelevent information either.
    That amendment to the Constitution was designed to protect honest people from inconvience not to give free reign to the population to carry out conspiracies. The people who insisted on this protection of requiring warrants were smugglers and other riff raff. In real life criminals committ crimes with other criminals. Should we expect the police to wait until a criminal gives them a reason to conduct an investigation. It should be obvious that when the police monitor your communictions and your whereabouts by tracking your cell phone they are only doing what is known in other circles as getting ahead of the eight ball. I have often heard people complain that the police are never there when you need them. With technological competence the police could be where they need to be when they need to be much more often.
    Now as to monitoring our political thoughts if you keep your thoughts to yourself then the government can not monitor your thoughts even if they bug your home and car and follow you around 24/7. If you are sharing your thoughts with others then any government not only has a right to the thoughts that you are spreading they have a duty to know.
    This position gives me something in common with the Wahabis.
    I differ from them though in that I agree with their Muslim theological opponents who say that it is OK to lie if you think telling the truth will cuase you or an innocent 3rd party to be persecuted.
    I also hold the position that if what we say is reasonable,
    For example, that in March of 2003 Sgt. Akbar was the only member of the US military to defend the Constitution of the USA, something that I have said numerous times in the past,
    and if we get persecuted for saying that, someone somewhere who might not even agree with you will get angrier at the person doing the punishing than the person making what biased
    people would call an obnoxious statement.
    The expression of and monitoring of unpopular political beliefs is closely connected to censorship. I watched this series on John Adams recently and in it Benjiman Franklin was shown telling John Adams that he should censor himself because when you think publically you make needless enemies.
    That seems reasonable. But it also seems reasonable to me to say that if we do not take risks we are helping to create a society that will only think inside the box.
    But once something has passed the frontal lobe test and we wish to share it we are faced with the question of HOW to share it. Unless we are independetly wealthy we will have to gain the consent of other people to share our idea(s). Hopefully that consent will be enthusiastic but in some cases it might be grudging consent. People in a position of authority over a publishing company, a radio or TV station,
    a magizine, newspaper or website have to seperate what they think is bad from those that cross sacred lines. If there are space limitations then many other factors could come in to play. I do not envy anyone who has to make such decisions.
    I hope that this triad will knock some sense in to the liberal mind.

  6. “And so it begins…again.”

    Like it was going to be over just because we decided we were tired of it?

    Nothing encourages the innately violent like refusing to fight until the fight is completely kicked out of the enemy.

    After Somalia, bin Laden’s propaganda machine labeled us “paper tigers”. We’ve shown the enemy nothing to refute that.

  9. @4 Curt

    Does the term “windbag” have any special meaning for you?
    During your nap, contemplate the word, “Brevity”.

    PS – Don’t wet your bed.

  10. Curt Kastens, your Mommy just called. She says for you to be a good little boy, and she’ll have a nice, warm enema ready for you when you get home, then you can spout your crap into the toilet instead of on these threads!
    Seriously, you are living proof that diarrhea of the mouth is a side effect of having SHIT FOR BRAINS!!

  11. As they shred our Military Strength, they over extend it abroad…. This cannot end well in the long run.

  15. Can someone please give me the Cliff Notes’ version of what Curt said? I’ve read it three times, and I still don’t get the point he’s trying to get across.

    Is there a version of Kaopectate that works for diarrhea of the mouth? Methinks Curt needs to get a script for it.

  16. @15 – Thank you for my morning laugh!!!

    No one, not even Curt Kastens, has any idea what he said.

    So all of you, please remember DO NOT POST STUFF WHILE STINKING DRUNK.

    Thank you.

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