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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Hiding the truth

    Yesterday, I wrote about an Afghan major who gunned down eight Americans in cold blood. Today, the USAToday writes that the Obama Administration and the Department of Defense will no longer keep public statistics on American trainers who were killed by their students;

    Since 2005, more than 50 troops had been killed and 48 wounded by Afghan troops, according to data released before the policy changed and USA TODAY research. In 2011, Afghan troops killed at least 13 ISAF troops.

    I guess whether withdrawal from Afghanistan is realistic or not is the reason they’d begin to hide this evidence from the public. In other words, withdrawal is now the over-arching goal and not success.

    President Obama has said he intends to hand off security responsibility to the Afghan government in 2014. NATO forces train Afghans to fill the ranks of the country’s military and police forces to keep the Taliban insurgency from regaining power.

    So who wants to be the last to die for a lie?

  • This reminds me of someone

    Fox News has made public the “black box” recordings of the Italian cruise ship which tipped over and it reminds of someone I can’t quite put my finger on;

    I don’t know, they hit a rock that wasn’t supposed to be there. Kind of like the economic problems that no one in this administration could see. And they blamed the rock.

    And he’s sitting in a row boat telling everyone he’s coordinating a rescue effort while he’s isolated from the actual danger. I guess that was similar to the “shovel ready projects” we heard so much about.

    Refusing to come back on board and do his job, the captain was sorta like throwing lavish White House parties, while the working poor become the non-working poor. Like buying $36 muffin, like “coordinating” a food stamp recovery.

    Maybe it’s just me who can’t make the connection. If the captain had only hit a golf ball from his row boat, I’d finally be able to figure out who he reminds me of.

  • F&F supervisors promoted

    ROS sends a link to the LA Times which announces the promotion of three Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives supervisors of the famous Fast & Furious operation which successfully armed Mexican drug cartel thugs with more than two thousand guns from US gun dealers.

    All three have been heavily criticized for pushing the program forward even as it became apparent that it was out of control. At least 2,000 guns were lost and many turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and two at the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.

    Ya know, where I work, they don’t generally promote people who make decisions that are contrary to the laws of our country and do injury to the safety and security of the American people. So, when people like this who are found to be involved with what are generally considered to be lapses of good judgement, are promoted, a casual observer an probably assume that this was the desired outcome of the operation. I’m just sayin’…

  • Watching the watchers

    Kate Pavlich at Townhall writes about the DHS, which doesn’t seem interested in the real threats to our national security these days has begun keeping track of journalists and those of you who update auduences in real time;

    Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.

    Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

    Is it any wonder that “lone wolves” are popping up all over the place when our Department of Homeland Security is watching all of the people (veterans, bloggers and journalists) who aren’t a threat. Homeland Security is becoming what the Left claimed the Bush Administration was going to turn into. The only problem is that no one is complaining like they did when there was no credible threat from the Bush Administration.

  • VetVoice on UriNation video

    dicksmith writes about the video we discussed last night which depicted five soldiers as they urinated on and filmed some dead Taliban soldiers.

    But what is clear is that these Marines’ leaders did not instill in them the regulations they were to follow, the importance of those regulations to the mission and how doing something like this can adversely affect the mission and fuel the insurgency. Endless war causes a degradation of leadership. It becomes more clear with each new scandal that this is undoubtedly happening to our military.

    I disagree, of course…I wouldn’t blame their leaders. If this was a team of snipers, as news reports suggest, they’re probably accustomed to working outside the immediate reach of their leadership. They knew that what they were doing is wrong, and they did it anyway.

    But one thing I noticed in dicksmith’s missive; when Brandon Friedman wrote about Abu Ghraib, probably a similar incident, Friedman always blamed the Bush Administration for leadership failures.

    Now, if dicksmith wanted to be consistent with VoteVet editorial policy, he should probably blame the Obama Administration for their contribution to this incident. I’m pretty sure that Joe Biden sent out directives for the troops to piss on the dead enemy…it sounds as effective as dividing up Iraq to force peace on them, and pinning our hopes in Afghanistan on robot ninja zombies. Of course, my theory falls apart since Biden doesn’t think that the Taliban are the enemy…but I’d call for an investigation anyway.

  • Marine to be executed by Iran

    A few of you have sent us the link about Amir Mirza Hekmati, 28, dual citizen Iranian and a former Marine Farsi translator who served in Afghanistan. Apparently, he went to visit his grandmother in iran and got himself scooped up by the Iranian government and now he’s been convicted of being a spy for the CIA and sentenced to death;

    “If true, we strongly condemn such a verdict and will work with our partners to convey our condemnation to the Iranian government,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

    The two moves come at a time when new U.S. sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program are causing real economic pain. Tehran has responded with threats to international shipping that have frightened oil markets. And a parliamentary election in two months is widening Iran’s internal political divisions.

    Not that it’s his fault, but given the history of the Iran government towards Iranian-Americans and the gutlessness of this White House, I don’t think I’d go to Iran for any reason at this point. But, I’m pretty sure he won’t be killed, but that Iran will miraculously release him just before the November elections here. The Iranians realize what the stakes are in the upcoming elections and they’ve chosen their preferred candidate.

  • Hoping for peace is not a defense plan

    Our buddy, Rowan Scarborough at the Washington Times writes today that “Obama’s war plan pins hopes on peace“. Yeah, but peace never happens when you need it most. Scarborough quotes my old brigade commander from the 3rd Infantry Division, “Jungle” George Joulwan;

    Retired Army Gen. George A. Joulwan, who was supreme allied commander in Europe from 1993 to 1997, told The Times that new military strategies have a poor record of predictions.

    “We’ve been through all this before,” he said. “This is about the fourth time that we have downsized and reorganized our military forces. Unfortunately, it never is predictive of what’s going to happen.”

    For example, when Gen. Joulwan took NATO command in 1993, national security officials said the Clinton administration planned to focus forces on Asia. Ground forces were reduced significantly, and the emphasis was on massive air and naval power.

    A short time later, Gen. Joulwan was sending 60,000 troops, 20,000 of them American, into the Balkans in Operation Joint Endeavor to stop Serbian atrocities in Bosnia.

    “What I argued for [while on active duty] is the capability to conduct five simultaneous, regional contingencies because I think that’s the strategic environment we’re in. And I do see an enlarged role for special forces and CIA-type operatives. But we do need to be able to deter conflict as well as to fight and win. And that’s the challenge for the new national security strategy.”

    Yeah, look around. Iran is conducting operations in the Persian Gulf, an exercise on it’s Afghan border while Ahmadinejad is visiting Venezuela. North Korea is bound to flex some muscle soon to prove they’re still a hermit kingdom. Putin has problems in his fiefdom. Pakistan is facing internal disorder. The African National Congress is losing it’s grip in South Africa. China says it’s no threat, so you know that means they’re a threat.

    But I’m sure that Hope and Change bullshit will work much better on the world stage than it did on our economy.

  • Laying the political groundwork for devastating security disinvestment and defense sector job cuts

    They’re coming. They’re real. After the initial rounds of cuts initiated by the Democrats and then the bi-partisan failure to insulate our national defense from indiscriminate slash and burn budgeting we are now on the precipice of the enfeebled 90’s military with 21st century commitments and enemies. The cynical tilling of the field for these cuts by the anti-military Left has been deliberate and systematic.

    Not to say that the adolescent libertarian Right is without blame. Welcome to the hell paved with stupid intentions. Any doubt about the cross-cultural nature of this stupidity can be quickly remedied by simple Google searches. Yep, that’s the perennially useless Barney Frank side by side with Chemtrail hero Ron Paul. Go get ’em guys!

    We should start with the testing ground of all new talking points in politics, the internet. Here we have on the “Real News Network’s” hosting the unbiased Jo Comerford of the “National Priorities Project“, going on about military cuts:

    A significant yet tired piece of propaganda emerges from this video. Comerford begins with, and ultimately relies upon, the idiot’s impression of the federal budget: that federal discretionary spending constitutes the most important, even most substantial, portion of government spending. It’s important to note that after her tired charade, which attempts to impress on the viewer that the portion of federal spending which constitutes military spending is the lion’s share, the circus master chimes in around the 3:00 minute mark with the reinforcing: “…because the military represents such a bigger portion of the overall budget.”

    Oh, really?

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