This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: NSOM

  • LTC Ralph Peters (Ret) unloads on the Generals

    For those not familiar with Ralph Peters he’s an old MI guy and unapologetic supporter of the war in Iraq who later came out in opposition to the surge, before conceding it worked. His record, as with most fallible humans, is mixed. He’s been know for inflammatory quotes such as:

    “Make no mistake: the anti-war voices long for us to lose any war they cannot prevent”

    and

    “We’ve mired ourselves by attempting to modernize a society that doesn’t want to be — and cannot be — transformed. 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.”

    He’s also had some rather choice assumptions on potential POWs.

    In a piece titled “Soldiers Murder Afghans, Generals Murder Soldiers” Ralph Peters goes all out on the argument that the War in Afghanistan is irredeemable and has far exceeded its expiration date. He makes quite clear that our service members with stars on their shoulders carry much of the blame for this state of affairs.

    If there’s a “battle cry” in Afghanistan, it’s “Blame the troops!” Generals out of touch with the ugly, brute reality on the ground down in the Taliban-sympathizing villages respond to every seeming crisis in Afghan-American relations by telling our troops to “respect Afghan culture.”

    But generals don’t have a clue about Afghan “culture.” They interact with well-educated, privileged, English-speaking Afghans who know exactly which American buttons to press to keep the tens of billions of dollars in annual aid flowing. The troops, on the other hand, daily encounter villagers who will not warn them about Taliban-planted booby traps or roadside bombs, who obviously want them to leave, who relish the abject squalor in which they live and who appear to value the lives of their animals above those of their women. When our Soldiers and Marines hear, yet again, that they need to “respect Afghan culture,” they must want to puke up their rations.

    …

    Right now, our troops are being used as props in a campaign year, as pawns by dull-witted generals who just don’t know what else to do, and as cash cows by corrupt Afghan politicians, generals and warlords (all of whom agree that it’s virtuous to rob the Americans blind).

    What are our goals? What is our strategy? We’re told, endlessly, that things are improving in Afghanistan, yet, ten years ago, a U.S. Army general, unarmed, could walk the streets of Kabul without risk. Today, there is no city in Afghanistan where a U.S. general could stroll the streets. We may not have a genius for war, but we sure do have a genius for kidding ourselves.

    Personally I’d swap out much of the “Generals” with “politicians”.

    He also goes into the Robert Bales incident but that’s really just a foil for a bigger point he’s trying to make, be it right or wrong. Give it a read, it’s worth the 10 minutes of your life. I promise.

  • Corps’ initial cuts foreshadow diminished core capabilities

    The Marine Corps announced today that it will be forced to cut four infantry battalions and a staggering twelve flying squadrons, along with three associated Headquarters units. This is in order to slim down by 20,000 service members as necessitated by the first half trillion dollar cut in defense spending. In 2007 the Marines began to reform the storied battalions of the 9th Marine Regiment. The Marines reconstituted the Regiment’s three battalions and put them into the command structure of other Regiments, avoiding the need to stand up a new HQ unit. My guess is that they’ll again decommission these battalions.

    At the same time this news was hitting the wires came the announcement that the Army will be dipping into traditional Marine Corps territory by joining in on Pacific theater oriented “forced entry” training as the Marines resume focus on that, long neglected and traditional, modus operandi. From the Army Times:

    The two services are planning a series of exercises likely to take place in North Carolina, where tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines are based at Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, which are located just 90 miles apart. With the future security environment uncertain, and an end in sight to combat operations in Afghanistan, the services are discussing ways to leverage complimentary capabilities, said Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, the Corps’ deputy commandant for combat development and integration who serves also as commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va.

    “As we look at new strategies, as we look at potential areas of operations in the Pacific, I think it’s very natural that the Marines and the Army discuss it … should we have to go somewhere where people don’t want us to go,” Mills said.

    The article goes on to talk about how the Marines and Army have conducted many joint operations and training exercises in the past (duh) but the reality is that this is an alignment in the strategic relationship between the two services, not seen since the Second World War.

    With baseline, not war, funding cuts already causing the cancellation of the Marine Corps’ only viable amphibious vehicle, the EFV, and a toxic combination of contractor bloat, politics and defense cuts imperiling the F-35B the Marines may be soon left in a situation where their MEUs have no ship to shore combat vehicle and no organic fixed wing support, nor enough bodies to go around even if they did.

    It’s also worth bearing in mind that this is only the first round of cuts for this coming decade. Should the efforts of hard charging, military friendly, Congressmen like Buck McKeon fail and looming sequestration come to pass you can expect twice these cuts. Because of the anti-military Progressive Democrats and anti-spending libertarian Republicans even if sequestration is averted you can expect more cuts on the margins, and soon.

    If that does happen we might find that Obama has fulfilled his promise not to create a “hollowed out force”. True to his word we’ll have a “no show force”.

  • Afghan charitably reminds Panetta of real threat

    There’s no need to reiterate Jonn’s post on Pannetta having his troops disarmed before speaking with them.

    It would seem, quite epiphanously, that while Leon Panetta was having American troops disarmed before allowing them in his presence an Afghan stole a truck and drove it through the airfield’s perimeter in what seems like an attempted attack. Initial reports indicate he was a civilian employee at the base. So our Secretary of Defense is distrustfully disarming American troops while one of our “partners” is trying to kill him. It’s good to be reminded of the perspective of our current leadership, from time to time.

  • JBLM Pvt stabbed to death off base

    The hits keep on coming for JBLM.

    Twenty-nine year old 5th Stryker Brigade Private Nathaniel Ollis was found stabbed to death at his off base apartment. He was a married father of three pending separation at the time of his death. When he was a Pfc he survived an IED blast in Iraq that killed three of his fellow soldiers and left him badly wounded.

    I’m unsure of the nature of his discharge or the exact circumstances of his death and I won’t echo the grusome details, those so interested can follow the link. After a police chase of the two losers who killed him came this:

    After Olympia detectives arrested the suspects, one of them told a detective that he and others helped clean blood from the crime scene Friday on Lilly Road. He said he was “masterminding” the cleanup efforts because “I’m the smartest one.” The same suspect told detectives that he was injecting methamphetamine during the police pursuit Sunday on I-5.

    I looked these two dipshits up but until I’m sure the guys I found are in fact the guilty parties I won’t post any of their information.

    My sincere condolences to his family.

  • Left’s media hit squads trying to censor AFN

    (Updated)

    As a full disclaimer: I don’t like Rush Limbaugh. I don’t enjoy his programming, his attitude or his incessant partisanship. That being said I’m not in a huff about his existence behind a microphone or the pleasure others take in it. If anything the man serves more as a reliable PR foil for Democrats than as a leader for Republicans.

    What does really irratate me though is the effort of partisan media flaks trying to remove his show from our Armed Forces Network. AFN carries all sorts of programming for troops based not on political affiliations but on the popularity of that programming among the under-served demographic of overseas military personnel. So this petition to get Limbaugh taken away from the troops, despite his popularity among those troops, is pretty low.

    Well, good news. There’s a new petition for the White House to keep Limbaugh on AFN. The White House’s guidlines say that if a petition reaches 25,000 votes it will give an official response. The petition to censor Limbaugh is a few days old and at about 22k over 25k. The petition to retain the popular programming is brand new and under 1k. I’m sure, though, it can rely on a few more clicks via TAH.

      Anti-censorship petition. Keep Limbaugh.

      Pro-censorship petition. Ditch Limbaugh.

  • Like, b w/u in spirit…man.

    As an admittedly petty aside, Coffee Strong has cancelled their “memorial” outside the gates of JBLM for the sixteen Afghans killed in the Stryker soldier’s shooting spree. They told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that they cancelled it because they didn’t want to appear “anti-military”.

    Their supporters and members (a who’s who of Seattle area anti-military left-wing radicals) didn’t seem to feel that way. CS’s event page on facebook is filled with regretful apologies that they can’t get away from the bong tonight. In other words nobody was going to show up.

  • Navy spending $26.75/gl for biofuels

    Everyone’s favorite Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, was on the Hill this week getting yelled at by some House Republicans for putting Obama’s political considerations before his Department’s war fighting considerations. But what else is new? Most of the Politico article’s premise, the Navy’s “green energy” program, is old news for TAH readers but a few specific things caught my eye.

    The U.S. must move away from its dependence on foreign oil, and the Navy’s clean-energy projects, including investments in algae-based biofuels, “have made us better warfighters,” Mabus said, explaining that for every $1 increase in oil prices per barrel, the Navy pays and additional $31 million in fuel costs.

    “That means that our sailors and Marines steam less, train less, fly less,” Mabus said. “For these reasons, we have to be relentless in our pursuit of energy goals that will continue to make us a more effective fighting force and our military and our nation more energy independent.”

    And yet the article goes onto explain that not only is the Navy spending about 600% more on bio fuel that’s not economically viable but it’s doing so for non-military related reasons.

    The efforts for a greener Navy don’t come cheap. In December, the service purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuels at $26.75 per gallon, POLITICO Pro reported. The biofuels were then mixed with petroleum-based fuels, typically costing just a few dollars a gallon.
    One of the reasons behind the Navy’s investment in the more-expensive biofuels is to promote domestic alternative-energy production. Navy leaders contend that a vibrant clean-energy industry in the United States could protect the fleet from spikes in fuel prices.

    Last I checked that’s what the Strategic Oil Reserve is for. At least when it isn’t being tapped into to lower needlessly inflated gas prices during an election year.

    It’s truly Orwellian to have the Secretary come out and say that the Navy needs to use these biofuels to save money during budget cuts and improve their ability to fight wars then immediately concede that not only is the program increasing costs, but it’s being pursued in the context of the White House’s heavily politicized (and corrupt) strategic energy policy. I mean the guy was raising a fuss over a fuel type fluctuating by a dollar a gallon and then turning around and spending $20 more a gallon to replace it. They tried to hedge a bit by saying that the Navy needs to “be ready” for when these fuels aren’t heinously inefficient and expensive. But we’ve been hearing for 15 years how biofuels and other alternate energy sources are “just a few years” away from being economically viable. Fast forward to 2012 and the Navy is shelling out $26 bucks for something it could be paying about $4 for.

    In case you’re not sufficiently offended by the intellectual dishonesty, here’s a moral outrage to ice the cake: Mabus finished off his political dance by invoking the memory of past, and the specter of future, Marine casualties.

    Leaders of the Marine Corps also have focused more on energy in recent years — a result of the high cost of moving huge volumes of fuel to U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. Currently, the corps consumes more than 200,000 gallons a day there.
    “For every 50 convoys we bring in in fuel, a Marine is killed or wounded,” Mabus told lawmakers last month. “That is too high a price to pay.”
    In all, about 3,000 U.S. troops or contractors have been killed or wounded protecting convoys, POLITICO has reported. Roughly 80 percent of convoys carry fuel.
    The Marine Corps has set two major energy goals: to cut its battlefield requirements for energy by half by 2025 and to have half its bases produce as much energy as they consume by 2020.

    Now I’m all for creating renewable sources of power for bases overseas to cut usage if the systems make sense. But if you’re going to start using my dead friends to push your boss’s energy policy on behalf of good vibes for his political base you better make damn sure you’re not doing so while spending an extra $12 million a year on fuels with lower BTUs than traditional petrol and so actually INCREASING the number of convoys required to meet our military’s energy needs.

  • Zero trust in the professional force

    This next stroke out of genius of the Department of the Navy’s leadership is along the same line of thought as that targeted by my recent rant over Lt. Daniel “Lock ’em Down” Durdin’s desire to rescind the boot-leave (and, realistically, massively popular PR program) for the 99.987% of bootcamp graduates who make it through that ten day minefield unscathed.

    According to Fox News, the Navy and the Marine Corps are planning to install breathalyzers on their ships and in their units for Sailors and Marines as they report to duty. No sarcasm, no hyperbole. That’s a 100% true statement, irony free. From Fox:

    The U.S. Navy will start giving Breathalyzer tests to Marines and sailors reporting for duty aboard ships and submarines and at squadrons, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced Monday in a worldwide call to forces.

    Another winning initial from Obama’s new Navy Secretary. One would think that only a severe and immediate crisis would prompt such a dramatic and service wide effort. Instead it’s this:

    The testing is part of a new 21st Century Sailor and Marine initiative…

    I trust everyone’s alarms bells are sounding at this point, yes?

    a multi-prong program aimed at reinforcing healthy lifestyles both on and off-duty. The program emphasizes healthy lifestyles through nutrition, responsible alcohol consumption, zero tolerance for drug use and fitness programs as well as suicide prevention, family and personal preparedness and financial planning.

    Ah, yes. Of course.

    Not only will sailors reporting for duty watch have to submit to alcohol testing, random Breathalyzers will be done elsewhere “to reduce the occurrence of alcohol-related incidents that can end careers and sometimes end lives,” the Navy confirmed to Fox News.
    “This is not done to punish, but to help. We want to help sailors and Marines make good choices before something happens that can’t be undone,” Mabus said during remarks given aboard the USS Bataan in Norfolk, Va., which were televised and web-streamed live to the fleet.
    Mabus said the goal is to maximize readiness, fitness and safety.

    —

    According to Federal News Radio, a senior Navy official said the Breathalyzer tests would be non-punitive nor legally admissible, and is intended to let commanders of individual vessels get a heads-up about potential alcohol-related problems.

    Now anyone that knows anything about the US military knows there are no such things as non-punitive actions when it comes to this sort of thing, especially when it’s constructed in the paradigm of “integrity checks” or “substance abuse”. Then again probably the only worse thing than a sailor or Marine hit by this “wellness” program getting ran up the flag pole for not quite sleeping all of last night off is a sailor or Marine failing a breathalyzer when reporting for duty and getting a good long talking to about living a balanced lifestyle from someone with a ponytail.

    When I read about things like this my mind goes to dark places. Is this another attempt at infantilizing Americans? Is it an ideologically motivated initiative to “cleanse” those of the old school who don’t embrace the Left’s New Military? After all, I’m not exactly old salty over here and when I came in the Marines our SNCOs were still complaining about not being able to have a couple beers at lunch at the E-Club anymore. Or maybe, most frightening of all, the people at the top of the DotN really do think so little of their sailors and Marines.

    Because, ultimately, this isn’t about “sometimes young sailors and Marines can make bad choices”, as we all know is true. This is about replacing NCOs with a piece of technology and treating the entire force as pending miscreants. It says, “I don’t trust my enlisted leadership.”

    Regarldess of how you cut it I can’t say that we’re sending the message that we have a capable and trustworthy force of professionals guarding our nation when the Navy finds it prudent to make sure the 155 Officers and Petty Officers it has entrusted a $2 billion dollar vessel with enough nuclear weaponry aboard to incinerate a quarter of the world’s population be given a breathalyzer first. Or that the Marine Corps needs treat the Marines who just spent 9 months living in blood, sweat and shit while making truly life and death decisions everyday need to be treated like DUI offenders trying to start their car in the morning.

    Hopefully it’s more cock-up than conspiracy and this can just be chalked up to stupidity.