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

Author: Operator Dan

  • Who really cares about the Palestinians?

    Recently, General Petreaus stated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict foments “anti-American sentiment” in the Middle East before the Senate. He went into further detail about this belief in a report that he submitted to the Joint Chiefs, that was part of an argument to add Israel to CENTCOM. Although I  think Petreaus’s main motivation behind his statements was to attempt to move Israel in CENTCOM’s AO (which has been debated for years), I take issue with how much the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (more specifically the supposed plight of the Palestinian people) really shapes Arab attitudes toward the US.

    There is no doubt that Islamist terrorist groups use the conflict as a propaganda tool against the United States. However, even if we were more forceful with Israel in pushing to make peace or even if we went as far as not to recognize their right to exist, groups like Al Qaida or Hezbollah would still attack us because we do not adhere to their radical version of Islam. Those in the anti-Israel camp (both left and right) like to push the line that the main reason why Al Qaida launches attacks against us is simply because we support Israel, which is of course nonsense. I also do not dispute that there are millions of Arabs who sympathize with the Palestinians and who view the United States as a tool of Israel.

    However if you look at how most Arab governments have behaved towards Israel in the last two decades and how they treat their own large Palestinian populations, it is clear that the Arabs aren’t exactly as anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian as the media portrays them. Even though most Arab governments still don’t recognize the right of Israel to exist, they aren’t opening plotting to destroy Israel anymore and aren’t lending the Palestinians a lot of material support. Even in 2006 when Israel invaded Lebanon, there was no military opposition from other Arab governments. This includes Syria which is arguably the most anti-Israel country in the region had military and political interests in Lebanon. After their complete and utter defeat in five wars at the hands of the Israelis, obviously most Arab governments grew wary of throwing valuable military resources against one of the world’s best fighting forces. In addition, they realized that it really doesn’t matter for them and their people whether or not Israel builds a few new settlements in the West Bank or whether or not Israel occupies Gaza. Most have larger problems to worry about. Granted, at times Israel is convenient punching bag for some Arab leaders to distract their people from their own leadership failures. But the days of that rhetoric turning into serious military action or support for Palestinian terrorist groups seem to be over.

    How many Arab countries treat their own Palestinian populations says a lot as well. Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt restrict the movement of Palestinians within their own countries and usually confine them to refugee camps. Jordan even fought a war against its Palestinian population in the 1970s. After the PLO supported Saddam Huessin during Desert Storm, most of the wealthy gulf states kicked their Palestinian populations out. Obviously, these Arab governments treat their Palestinians “brothers” worse than the Israelis do.

    I’ve talked a lot here about how many people like to paint the Middle East in broad strokes. Again, here is another example of a complex issue that just can’t be simplified to bash American policies in the Middle East.

  • Turning Nothing Into Something

    My senior year in high school I worked at Circuit City as a computer tech and salesman. At the particular store I worked at, we had a public address (PA) system in the store that was supposed to be used to make announcements about things sales and when the store was closing. However, most of the time it was used by employees to play pranks on each other (ex: we were able to patch a personal phone call over the PA so the whole store could here a particular employee breaking up with his girlfriend). One time, a customer was able to get on the PA system and scream PENIS after which he immediately ran out of the store. Following that particular incident, the district manager ordered that all the PA systems in all the stores in the Phoenix area be disabled. That was pretty much the end of it (and unfortunately the end of a lot of fun at Circuit City).

    Something similar happened at a Walmart in New Jersey when someone (either a customer or employee) got on the store’s PA system and announced that all black people needed to leave the store. Stupid and childish? Yes. Racist? Absolutely. Should the store management reevaluate how their PA system is used? Definitely. Does this incident warrant a wide ranging criminal investigation by the local police department and county prosecutor? Hell no.

    From the article:

    Store management contacted the Washington Township Police Department, which opened an investigation in conjunction with the county prosecutor’s office, Deputy Police Chief John Dalesandro said.

    “The incident is being investigated by both law enforcement agencies as a suspected bias intimidation crime,” local authorities said.

    What in the name of Chesty Puller is a “bias intimidation crime”? To me it sounds like something the local police chief and prosecutor make up for a chance at some national publicity (which they are obviously getting). You’re going to tell the people of your county that there isn’t more pressing matters than some jackass getting on a PA system at Walmart and saying something retarded?

    I’m waiting quite eagerly for Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the SPLC to come into this town and start extorting this town and Walmart for their “racism”. Does anybody want to take bets on when they are going show up?

  • The Real Problem With Healthcare In America

    I don’t think anybody who regularly reads TAH would disagree that the healthcare bills that have passed the House and Senate are complete monstrosities. Even many Democrats that have voted for and supported one of the bills agree that they are “far from perfect” but one must be passed for the sake of passing a bill with the word healthcare in it. I could take up the entire front page and spend most of St. Patrick’s day delving into the downright insane provisions in these bills, but I am not going to do that because I want to start drinking soon. Besides, they have already been well documented by other bloggers (especially by Michelle Malkin and by the writers at National Review) and I would just be repeating what they have already said.

    One thing I would like to discuss however is what the real problem is with healthcare in America. The media and pretty much everybody in Washington are saying the problem with healthcare is access to healthcare (or the cost of access to healthcare insurance) but the real problem is the cost of healthcare itself. Immediately, some would say that they are the same thing, but they are not. What drives the level of access to healthcare is the cost of healthcare services, equipment, and the cost to pay healthcare professionals. The higher the cost is, the less access many Americans have to healthcare. The Democrats (and even many Republicans) have bought into the idea that what is primarily driving the cost of healthcare higher is the insurance industry’s insatiable drive for profits. However, the insurance industry has some of the lowest profit margins of any industry and the rise in premiums has matched the high levels of inflation in the cost of healthcare. This brings us to the fundamental issue with the healthcare reform bills being pushed today: THEY DON’T ADDRESS THE REAL PROBLEM. These bills address access and not cost. All they do is shift the burden of cost around.

    So what can the government do to reduce the cost of healthcare? Well, its not so much of what it should do but what is shouldn’t be doing. Healthcare is one of the most heavily regulated industries in America, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that more regulation inevitably drives up cost. Everything from the cost of getting a drug approved by the FDA to the cost of getting a license to practice medicine drives up the price of healthcare. Look at the price of medical equipment for example. Why has the cost of technology that contain microprocessors (from computers to PDAs to even flat screen TVs) gone down significantly over the years while medical equipment that contains most of the same technology continued to go up? I don’t think the insurance companies are to blame for that one.  Then there is the contentious issue of tort reform. The amount that has to be paid by healthcare providers to cover potential liabilities, while not significant for some larger providers, has driven many smaller providers of healthcare (i.e. doctors in small offices) out of certain medical fields or out of the profession completely. This increases demand on fewer providers, and BOOM basic economics 101 you have higher prices. I could go on, but I think you can get the picture.

    Unfortunately, I don’t expect Washington to reverse course and address the real problem. It is much easier for Congress to blame the health insurance industry for the rising cost of healthcare than to look in the mirror and see who is really raising the cost of healthcare in America.

  • Going Rogue: The Marines in Afghanistan

    (H/t to F’n Boot for the link)

    The Washington Post had an article in its Sunday edition about how the Marines are operating in Afghanistan. Basically, the articles implies that the Marines have essentially “gone rogue” and are choosing not to follow McChrystal’s strategy of focusing on protecting population centers. Instead they have chosen to focus on rural areas in Helmand, Farah, and the Nimroz provinces and have been reluctant to detach units from the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) based in Helmand to support operations in more heavily-populated areas like Kandahar.

    I think this excerpt essentially sums up the article:

    The Marine approach — creative, aggressive and, at times, unorthodox — has won many admirers within the military. The Marine emphasis on patrolling by foot and interacting with the population, which has helped to turn former insurgent strongholds along the Helmand River valley into reasonably stable communities with thriving bazaars and functioning schools, is hailed as a model of how U.S. forces should implement counterinsurgency strategy.

    But the Marines’ methods, and their insistence that they be given a degree of autonomy not afforded to U.S. Army units, also have riled many up the chain of command in Kabul and Washington, prompting some to refer to their area of operations in the south as “Marineistan.” They regard the expansion in Delaram and beyond as contrary to the population-centric approach embraced by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and they are seeking to impose more control over the Marines.

    I do not believe that the Marine strategy is contrary to McChrystal’s overall counterinsurgency strategy. In fact, I think the Marines are quite obviously adopting it wholeheartedly, just as they embraced many of the same COIN tactics in Al Anbar, Iraq. It can’t be ignored that Helmand (which is the center of the Marine’s AO) has been the scene of more coalition KIA/WIAs than any other province, despite the sparse population. Obviously, Helmand has become a very important power center for the Taliban and if any progress is to be made against the Taliban in Kandahar or the rest of the country, the Taliban must not be allowed a sanctuary in Helmand. They also must not be allowed to establish similar bases of power in Nimuroz or Farah province or move freely across the Pakistani border. The senior Marine in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Nicholson, has this same mindset:

    “You cannot fix Kandahar without fixing Helmand,” Nicholson said. “The insurgency there draws support from the insurgency here.”

    The situation was similar with Al Anbar in Iraq, which the Marines were also primarily responsible for. Al Anbar, like Helmand, was sparsely populated. However, it became an important base of support for the Sunni insurgency,  including for Sunni insurgents in faraway cities like Mosul and Kirkuk. Also, just like with Helmand, Al Anbar became an important transit point for foreign fighters entering and exiting Iraq. If we would have not secured Al Anbar and won the support of the people in Al Anbar, we would have not been able to secure the rest of the country.

    Also, the article states that the Marines do not want to operate without the support of their own forces (the MAGTF concept). While Marines are trained to be supported primarily by Marines (or the Navy), they have shown an ability to operate succesfully with the support of the Army and Air Forces. When 2nd Battalion 7th Marines was operating essentially by itself in Helmand at the end of 2008, it was primarily supported by Army supply units, Air Force close-air support, and even British helicopter units. During my time in Iraq, our EOD team was from the Navy, the supply-unit supporting our base in Hit was an Army national guard unit, and our medevac support was from the Army. In Marjah, the attack was supported by Army and British infantry units. While the MAGTF is an important part of Marine Corps doctrine, the Marine Corps has shown itself to be flexible in both Iraq and Afghanistan and able to operate with the support of people outside of the Marine Corps and Navy.  If McChrystal needs to pull some units from Helmand to support an operation in Kandahar, the Marines are more than able to operate there.

    We Marines are a hard-headed bunch who like to think out of the box and do things our own way, no doubt about it. But in the case of Afghanistan, I don’t think anybody can deny that the Marine Corps has embraced McChrystal’s strategy and are implementing it in Helmand, Farah, and Nimuroz province.

  • You Should All Feel Safer Now

    …because professional douchebag Spencer Pratt is fighting cyber-terrorism. From Fox News:

    Reality television star Spencer Pratt is running from “The Hills” to fight cyber terrorism, FoxNews.com has confirmed.

    Bill Beasley, president of American Defense Enterprises, a firearms training firm in Los Angeles, told FoxNews.com that he and Pratt are in the “beginning stages” of negotiations to start a cybersecurity venture.

    “He’s always been very patriotic,” Beasley said Monday. “What you see on television is not him. He’s moving out of the Hollywood portion of his life.”

    Apparently President Obama inspired him:

    “Upon learning of President Obama’s declaration that the ‘cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation,’ I have decided to refocus my energy and devote my full resources to helping America face this and other unprecedented challenges,” Pratt told People.

    Awesome. Whats next? Jon Gosselin taking on North Korea?

  • The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

    Howell Raines is the disgraced former editor of the New York Times who was forced resigned due to his involvement in the Jayson Blair scandal. He was responsible for the “diversity above all” atmosphere that inhabited the newsroom at the Times that allowed Jayson Blair to be continually promoted despite his shoddy reporting. Raines also quite clearly failed to do his job as an editor and failed to pick up on the fact that Blair was embellishing most of his stories.

    But despite his obviously failings as an editor and his role in creating one of the biggest journalistic scandals in recent history, Raines still thinks that he comment with authority on the state of media in America today. In a column in the Washington Post, Raines goes after Fox News for its coverage of the healthcare issue. Here is the opening paragrah:

    One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven’t America’s old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration — a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

    I think a better question would be who hasn’t tried to blow the whistle on Fox News? The only point to MSNBC’s existence (which ironically evolved from a network Roger Ailes founded) seems to be to bash Fox News. Not to mention the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and just about every other major newspaper in the country runs a hit piece on Fox or one of its anchors on a pretty much a weekly basis. Oh and if you want to talk about propaganda campaigns, why not talk about the slobbering love affair that was the mainstream media’s relationship with the Obama campaign in 2008?

    The American people and most of our great modern presidents have been demanding major reforms to the health-care system since the administration of Teddy Roosevelt. The elections of 1948, 1960, 1964, 2000 and 2008 confirm the point, with majorities voting for candidates supporting such change. Yet congressional Republicans have managed effective campaigns against health-care changes favored variously by Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Clinton. Now Fox News has given the party of Lincoln a free ride with its repetition of the unexamined claim that today’s Republican leadership really does want to overhaul health care — if only the effort could conform to Mitch McConnell’s ideas on portability and tort reform.

    Healthcare was not the dominant issue in all those elections and those presidents weren’t elected simply to reform healthcare. Anybody with any sense of American political history in the 20th Century would know that. Nice try changing history Raines.

    My great fear, however, is that some journalists of my generation who once prided themselves on blowing whistles and afflicting the comfortable have also been intimidated by Fox’s financial power and expanding audience, as well as Ailes’s proven willingness to dismantle the reputation of anyone who crosses him. (Remember his ridiculing of one early anchor, Paula Zahn, as being inferior to a “dead raccoon” in ratings potential when she dared defect to CNN?) It’s as if we have surrendered the sword of verifiable reportage and bought the idea that only “elites” are interested in information free of partisan poppycock.

    Having watched Paula Zahn’s show on both CNN and Fox, I can say that is definitely a proven fact that a dead racoon is more interesting and could garner better ratings.

    As for Fox’s campaign against the Obama administration, perhaps the only traditional network star to put Ailes on the spot, at least a little, has been his friend, the venerable Barbara Walters, who was hosting ABC’s Sunday morning talk show. More accurately, she allowed another guest, Arianna Huffington, to belabor Ailes recently about his biased coverage of Obama. Ailes countered that he should be judged as a producer of ratings rather than a journalist — audience is his only yardstick. While true as far as it goes, this hair-splitting defense purports to absolve Ailes of responsibility for creating a news department whose raison d’etre is to dictate the outcome of our nation’s political discourse.

    Raines conveniently fails to mention that Huffington is an unabashed liberal who runs a left-wing news website whose “raison d’etre is to dictate the outcome of our nation’s political discourse”. Naturally she is going to attack someone who she views as competition. Not to mention that Walters is also a frequent guest on Fox, especially on O’Reilly’s show.

    I also have no doubt that Ailes is in the ratings business before the political business. If left-wingers like Olbermann and Maddow could pull the ratings they would be on Fox. But instead they are stuck getting their asses beat by their competitors on Fox because their shows suck.

    The conclusion:

    As for Fox News, lots of people who know better are keeping quiet about what to call it. Its news operation can, in fact, be called many things, but reporters of my generation, with memories and keyboards, dare not call it journalism.

    So what would the fuck would you call journalism Mr. Raines? Continually promoting a reporter who obviously was fabricating many of his stories simply because he was black? Compromising sensitive national security programs while you keep quiet about your own reporters being kidnapped in Afghanistan? Displaying an incredible amount of bias towards conservative and Republican political figures? If thats your version of journalism, than I guess the New York Times is the most pure journalistic institution in the country.

    The fact that the Washington Post would print trash like this written by a hack like Raines says a lot about the state of “America’s old-school news organizations”. They are in their death-throes, but they refuse to admit it.

  • “Patches” Loses It

    My favorite congressman blew his stack on the house floor today and went after the media’s coverage of the Massa scandal. He was speaking in support of a resolution put forth by Dennis Kucinich that calls for the withdrawal of Americans from Afghanistan by the end of this year and he was critical of the fact that the media was devoting more time to Massa than Afghanistan. I just saw the video played on CNN and it is quite entertaining. He is throwing around papers, his face is beet red, and he is practically foaming at the mouth. Beautiful. If anybody has seen this posted anywhere on the web, post the link in the comments section and I will add it to the post.

    I don’t think Patrick Kennedy really cares too much about what happens in Afghanistan. He was just looking for an excuse to throw a tantrum and get some attention for himself.  This guy is a joke and I think that the majority of Democrats in Congress are going to be glad to see him gone at the beginning of next year.

    Update 3/10/2010

    Video courtesy of anonymous poster in the comments:

    Watch CBS News Videos Online

  • Meet Jaime St. Claire-de Janiero: Fake MARSOC/Recon Marine

    (Thanks to the REAL Marines who are part of the F’n Boot Facebook group for the H/T)

    This clown has been going around various Marine Corps message boards and FB groups claiming to be a Recon Marine and a MARSOC operator. There is no record of him on MOL. Here is a picture he has posted in several groups :

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    First of all he is wearing Warrant Officer One rank on the collar of what appears to be a Gortex jacket. Every Marine who has worn Gortex knows there is a flap towards the center of the jacket where you put your rank. Next, he is wearing a SCUBA bubble and a Combat Parachutist Badge on Gortex which you don’t do. Then there is some kind of patch on both his left and right breast. The only type of patches Marines wear today are name patches for flight suits and FROG gear. Marines have not worn unit patches on their uniforms since the end of WW2.

    Here is another pic of him wearing the same outfit:

    n698735213_4579596_6113

    Here is a link to an album of pics he has posted on some Marine Corps Facebook groups. Most of the pics that he has are from MARSOC press releases or are stolen from other Marines’ photo albums. I am pretty sure those pictures that he has of the squad bay are from Major Jason Grose’s blog. He has also started his own blog, but he hasn’t made any posts yet. Looks like TAH has some competition! Here is the link to his Facebook page, which states that he is from Detroit. If you frequent any Marine Corps forums or internet groups and you see this clown, make sure to call him out. If any of you who live in Michigan run into this guy at any veterans events, well… use your discretion.

    Finally, doesn’t his name just scream “gay porn”?