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

Category: Military issues

  • SEAL to testify at Breanna Manning’s trial

    ROS sends a link to SkyNews which reports that a member of the SEAL Team which got bin Laden will testify at Breanna Manning’s trial that the documents that he released to Wikileaks aided the enemy;

    Defence lawyers had argued that proof of receipt is not relevant to whether Manning aided the enemy.

    The judge disagreed, saying the government “must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that intelligence was both given to and received by the enemy”.

    The witness has been publicly identified only as “John Doe” and as a Defence Department “operator”, a designation given to Seals.

    Prosecutors say he participated with Seal Team Six in their May 2011 assault on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which the terrorist leader was killed.

    His testimony would help establish a chain of custody for the evidence from its recovery to its analysis by a computer expert.

    That’s “SEALs”, SkyNews, they aren’t aquatic mammals. Or something. But then, they’re having trouble spelling “Defense”, too.

  • Déjà Vu All Over Again – Redux

    The current Administration has decided that it’s now OK for the US to provide direct military assistance to the new government of Somalia.  Specifically, the POTUS has determined that it is appropriate for the US to provide defense equipment and services to the Somali government.

    Yes, “defense equipment and services” means exactly what you think it does:  arms, equipment, and people to train Somali government forces.  No, plans to deploy US forces to Somalia have not yet been announced.  Yet.

    Why?  Because according to the POTUS, the US providing defense equipment and services to Somalia “will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace.”

    Damn.  I have that strange “I’ve seen this movie before, and the ending sucked” feeling.  Now why is that?

    Oh, yeah – now I remember.  The movie I’m thinking of told the story of events 20 years ago.

    It was called “Black Hawk Down”.

  • Last tanks leave Germany

    Last tanks

    It hardly seems possible, but the Stars & Stripes announces the departure of the last US tanks from Germany;

    The tanks belonged to the 172nd [Separate Infantry Brigade from Grafenwöhr] along with a mix that were leftover from other units, according to the 21st TSC.

    “It is an honor to be one of the soldiers escorting the last battle tanks out of Germany,” said Sgt. Jeremy Jordan of the 529th Military Police Company, in an Army story about the journey. “As these tanks sail back to the U.S., we are closing a chapter in history.”

    It’s the first time that there are no American tanks in Germany since March 23, 1945 when the first US tanks crossed the Rhine River into Germany during Operation Plunder.

  • The Purple Heart for Fort Hood victims

    Derek and MCPO Ret. in TN send us a link to CNN which discusses the reasons that the Department of Defense won’t award a Purple Heart to Nidal Hasan’s victims, and it has to do with lawyer shit;

    The Defense Department argues that awarding the Purple Heart to the Fort Hood victims would make it harder to convict Hasan in the death-penalty case and “deprive the victims of these crimes the right to see justice done.”

    “Defense counsel will argue that Major Hasan cannot receive a fair trial because a branch of government has indirectly declared that Major Hasan is a terrorist — that he is criminally culpable,” the document states. That could lead to a delay of the case or the reversal of a guilty verdict on appeal, it continued.

    “This laudable sentiment mistakenly and unwillingly supplants the criminal trial process by infusing official, formal statutory conclusions about the motive, intent and culpability of the man charged with the crime,” the memo reads.

    It would make it “harder to convict Hasan”? How is that? The article continues that the prosecutors will tell the jury that Hasan yelled “Allah Akbar” while he shot unarmed people. Before the shootings, he was in communication with Anwar al-Awlaki, someone that the US government determined was a terrorist threat to the US and sent him a catered Hellfire lunch. I don’t see how it could be hard to convict Hasan of being a terrorist, since what he did is terrorism. From U.S. Code Title 22, Ch.38, Para. 2656f(d); the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.

    I’m no lawyer, but some of you are. Maybe you can explain it to the rest of us.

  • Hagel to take paycut for sequestraton

    I don’t like the guy, but he stands in glaring contrast to his predecessor. Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense has vowed to take a pay cut when other DoD employees are furloughed, according to Politico;

    As a political appointee, Hagel isn’t subject to the furloughs, but Pentagon press secretary George Little said he would take a pay cut along with the workers who must begin staying home later this year.

    “The secretary plans to subject his pay to furlough levels even though he is not required to because he is a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed official in this department,” Little said.

    Since Hagel will continue to receive his normal payments, he would have to effectively write a check to the federal government for the amount of pay he would lose over 14 furlough days.

    It could also signal that sequestration isn’t going to last very long, but compared to Leon Panetta who made weekly trips home to California to be with his family at a cost of $33,000 while the people he commanded were deployed away from their families for months and years at a time, at least Hagel is somewhat decent and a brief breath of fresh air.

  • OIF vets; Bite Me got your medal

    So I was reading the Army Times today, something I don’t normally read and I ran across this article about the Iraq Commitment Medal, a medal designed by the Iraqi government for members of the US military who helped the Iraqis throw off the yoke of Hussein and fought back the al Qaeda militants who invaded the country.

    The title of the article is what drew me to it; OIF vets waiting for Iraq Commitment Medal. Yeah, I’m sure you’re not all ready to go on strike if you don’t get another bit of ribbon. But towards the end of the article is what tempted me to write about it;

    • Will anyone get one? The short answer is yes: Vice President Joe Biden. He received a medal from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during a special “day of commitment” ceremony in Baghdad on Dec. 1, 2011. Since then, however, the Defense Department has removed an illustration of the medal design – and photos of Biden receiving the medal – from its website.

    In his speech in Baghdad, Biden noted that the U.S. was withdrawing combat troops from Iraq in accordance with the Strategic Framework Agreement between Iraq and the coalition.

    “A promise made is a promise kept,” he said.

    Somehow I missed that story, probably because it was on Military Times and I don’t read that POS normally. But, the fact that Bite Me got a medal that celebrates American commitment to Iraq is a comedy of errors. For one thing, Bite Me wanted to partition Iraq into four different countries – yes, the smartest man on the planet wanted to break the nation up into pieces. That wouldn’t cause any problems would it? I mean, the war to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein began because Hussein claimed that Kuwait was the 19th province of Iraq.

    Additionally, Bite Me called the “surge” a failure;

    Biden offered an early rebuttal to next week’s testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador there. Petraeus and Crocker are expected to say the recent buildup in troops has succeeded in improving security. But they also likely will say that a period of assessment is needed this summer before officials can decide whether troop withdrawals can continue. Democrats have called this approach unacceptable and said they would pursue an alternative policy through legislation. They said their focus will be on restoring the strength of the Army and Marines and refocusing the nation’s resources on fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. “I believe the president has no strategy for success in Iraq,” Biden said. “His plan is to muddle through, and hand the problem off to his successor.”

    Both Bite Me and Obama voted against the “surge”, the crowning achievement in Iraq, but somehow he gets the Iraq Commitment Medal. I don’t think “commitment” means what they think it means. I know you guys don’t care about one more little foreign award, but I’m pretty upset at the fact that Bite Me, who tried to end the war before it reached any kind of success, and voted to cut off spending for continued operations no less than six times in 2007, and then in 2008 tried to undermine the security that had been won in Iraq by demeaning the momentous achievements by the troops there, gets the only Iraq Commitment Medal in existence.

    It’s like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to someone who has been warring their ass off. Or something.

    Added Here is a video of the full event were you can see the Iraqi Government giving the medal to the VP.

  • Two more females drop out of Marine’s Infantry Officer Course (UPDATED)

    In a link sent to us by beretverde, NBC reports that two more women tried unsuccessfully to graduate from the Marine Infantry Officer Course at Quantico, VA;

    Two female officers entered the demanding Marine Infantry Officer Course this week — only the second time in the history of the course that women have been allowed to compete to become ground combat leaders — but neither passed the grueling obstacle course on Thursday, military officials said.

    The women made it through the first few days of the course.

    Of the 110 students who began the course this week, 96 are still enrolled — the women were joined by 12 of their Marine brothers who also failed to complete the obstacle course entirely or could not complete it in the time allotted.

    Yes, it’s a difficult course, even men can’t make it through. There are five other women waiting for the summer course to begin so they can get their shot. I wish them luck, I truly do – as long as they make it through the course and graduate at the current standards. Eventually, I’m sure, a woman will graduate, but I’m also just as sure that the politicians and the sociologists will be doing their best to lower the standards so they can make their numbers.

    UPDATED: The New York Times tells a more complete story of the two young ladies. And mentions my concerns;

    In Quantico, concerns run deep among some staff members that pressure to accommodate women will lead to a softening of the Marine Corps’ tough standards. Col. Todd S. Desgrosseilliers, commander of the Basic School, which includes the Infantry Officer School and the Basic Officer Course, said that would not happen.

    “They are gender-neutral now,” he said of the standards. “They aren’t hard to be hard. These are the things they need to be able to do to be infantry officers.”

    Yeah, combat is Go/No Go. There are no minimum standards – only pass-fail. And I wonder if Col. Todd S. Desgrosseilliers has noticed who the Secretary of Defense is for the next four years. I have no doubt that Chuck Hagle would make political points with women’s groups by sending more soldiers to their inevitable deaths with less-than-minimum-standard leaders.

  • Who really got bin Laden

    Monday we wrote that SOFREP was expressing their doubts that Esquire’s “Shooter” was the fellow who shot bin Laden. Today, TSO sends us a link from CNN’s Peter Bergen expressing similar doubts;

    SEAL Team 6 operators are now in “serious lockdown” when it comes to “talking to anybody” about the bin Laden raid and say they have been frustrated to see what they consider to be the inaccurate story in Esquire receive considerable play without a response. Phil Bronstein, who wrote the 15,000-word piece about the Shooter for Esquire, was booked on CNN, Fox and many other TV networks after his story came out.

    Twenty-three SEALs and their interpreter assaulted the bin Laden compound just after midnight on the morning of May 2, 2011. They shot and killed bin Laden’s two bodyguards, one of bin Laden’s sons and the wife of one of the bodyguards and they also wounded two other women.

    The article describes the events that transpired that night, but I’m not comfortable pasting that much text into this blog – the account more closely follows the account of Matt Bissonette, the SEAL who wrote “No Easy Day” under the pseudonym Mark Owen, and the events as they are depicted in the movie Zero-Dark-Thirty.

    Now it really doesn’t matter who, exactly, shot bin Laden in terms of the historical aspect of the death, but it does affect the main premise of the article written by Sharon Stone’s ex-wife in Esquire. That being that the young man was tossed aside by the country with no health care. If the man would lie about the events of the raid, surely he’ll lie about the way hes been discarded by the country. And Mrs. Stone, or whatever her name is, was certainly a sucker for it, because he was more interested in the story supporting his preconceived notions than he was reporting the truth. Especially for someone who is the executive director of an organization called “Center for Investigative Reporting”.