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

Category: Military issues

  • My Views on Afghanistan, ROE’s, & Losing A War

    So most of the time, I write made up and mostly hilarious stories at The Duffel Blog, but occasionally, I will take some time to write something serious. I don’t normally toot my own horn over here but since Jonn is away and won’t be posting it for me, I must break my own rule.

    Published at Business Insider, “MARINE: Strict Rules Of Engagement Are Killing More Americans Than Enemy In This Lost War“:

    When I returned and transitioned to a role as an infantry instructor in 2006, my peers—who only had deployed to Iraq—quipped that I was part of the “forgotten war.”

    And where are we today?

    Six years after hearing those jokes, the war is forgotten by everyone except the men and women who continue to fight it. My mostly quiet wartime memory of 2005 has exploded into a battlefield of heavy combat with the casualties to go along with it.

    And yet all the blood, destruction—all the efforts of our military—cannot change the unfortunate and highly probable outcome that our 2014 exit from Afghanistan will be marked as a failure.

    I don’t want to believe it, but we are losing this war.

    Each day our soldiers and Marines leave the wire, only to face increasing attacks from a determined enemy. An insurgency that continues to enjoy support—even from inside a corrupt government in Kabul as well as Islamabad.

    And they don’t just face Taliban AK-47s and improvised explosives. They also continue to face the guns of their supposed allies, Afghan National Army and Police forces, who have killed over 30 U.S. military personnel just this year alone.

    As we try to win hearts and minds, the Taliban uses fear—and in a culture of tribalism and tradition, it is fear that works.

    You can continue reading the whole thing here.

  • Talk About Yer “Oh Sh*t” Moments

    Well, it appears two Georgia skydivers got just a bit more of a thrill recently than they bargained for.

    It seems that on August 12, 2012, a couple of skydivers landed a bit off-target after a jump. They landed on a nearby military reservation.

    What installation? The reservation for the Kings Bay Submarine Base near Saint Mary’s, Georgia.

    In the past three years, seven errant jumpers have landed on base property. By sheer good luck, none have been killed when apprehended by the base’s security forces.

    The military authorities were not amused. You see, the Kings Bay Submarine Base is a rather sensitive installation. Per Wikipedia, two submarine squadrons are based there. One squadron primarily has SSGNs; the other, SSBNs.

    For the nautically challenged, in layman’s terms those are called “Trident submarines”.

    Yeah.  That kinda explains why base authorities were not amused.

    All of the wayward jumpers appear to have been clients of a local firm, called “The Jumping Place”, operating out of the nearby Saint Mary’s airport. After the latest incident, the local airport authority revoked their license to operate from airport property. However, The Jumping Place’s ownership has announced it’s intent to file a complaint with the FAA regarding the action, claiming the local airport board exceeded its authority in the matter.

    As much as I support free enterprise, this business needs to move it’s operations to another airport.  Otherwise, one day luck will run out and an errant skydiver is going to get shot by base security forces.

    And before anyone asks:  no word on whether any of the skydivers involved in the recent incident called themselves “Thunder Fowl” or any other such nom de beauxeau. (smile)

  • Navy General McRaven tells SpecOps troops to zip it

    Hey, if the President says he’s a general, he’s a general, by golly. But General McRaven commander of Special Operations Command threatened his troops with legal action if they reveal Special Operations secrets to the public, in the wake of the pending release of the book “No Easy Day” written by Matt Bissonnette under the pseudonym Mark Owen;

    Special operations chief Adm. Bill McRaven warned his troops, current and former, that he would take legal action against anyone found to have exposed sensitive information that could cause fellow forces harm.

    “We will pursue every option available to hold members accountable, including criminal prosecution where appropriate,” the four-star commander wrote, in an open, unclassified letter emailed to the active-duty special operations community Thursday and obtained by The Associated Press.

    While I agree with the good general or admiral or whatever, he ought to put that much emphasis on busting out members of the White House staff who have been talking about the operations, too. That doesn’t make it right for the military to do it, because they shouldn’t be aping those low-life civilians.

    More on the subject from Mr. Hanson.

    Thanks to Chief Tango for the links.

  • That racist military line again

    Reuters is dredging up the skinhead military boogeyman again…in the wake of the gay shooter, Floyd Corkins, at the Family Research Council last week. I guess they’re trying to wave off speculation about his motivation by bringing up Wade Page and the shooting at the Sikh Temple a few weeks ago. Page has become the latest Timothy McVeigh – the crazy vet bent on destroying the world. Of course, they lean heavily on “research” by the Southern Poverty Law Center – you know, those guys who probably influenced Corkins to start his thwarted rampage at the Family Research Council by calling the FRC a hate group. Like they called the American Legion a hate group a few years back.

    But anyway, Reuters and SPLC are trying to scare the crap out of the country;

    If this scenario [a race war] seems like fantasy or bluster, civil rights organizations take it as deadly serious, especially given recent events. Former U.S. Army soldier Wade Page opened fire with a 9mm handgun at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on August 5, murdering six people and critically wounding three before killing himself during a shootout with police.

    Yeah, the only “civil rights organization” they quote in the whole piece is the SPLC who sees hate behind every blade of grass. And you’d think that an article like that would have some facts about someone who has been in the military in recent years, but no, the whole article is about people who left the military in the 90s, about incidences of so-called hate crimes that happened in more than a decade ago. ANd they still blame Bush;

    [Matt Kennard] argues the U.S. military was so desperate for troops while fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it allowed extremists, felons and gang members into the armed forces.

    The military can grant a “moral waiver” to allow a convicted criminal or otherwise ineligible person into the armed forces, and the percentage of recruits granted such waivers grew from 16.7 percent in 2003 to 19.6 percent in 2006, according to Pentagon data obtained by the Palm Center in a 2007 Freedom of Information Act request. But the Pentagon says no waiver exists for participation in extremist organizations.

    Kennard just wrote a book called “Irregular Army: How the U.S. Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror”. An entire book about recruiting criminals during the war on terror and still no examples in the article about these skinheads that supposedly populate the military in the here and now. How can that be? Maybe because “the Pentagon says no waiver exists for participation in extremist organizations.”

    “This is the best we’ve ever seen,” said Heidi Beirich, leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s intelligence project, referring to the Pentagon’s attitude. “It was really disheartening under the Bush administration how lightly they took it, so this is a major advance.”

    Yeah, it was Bush. It couldn’t have been that there was no real problem, could it?

    Ya know, if I worked for the SPLC, I’d do some real research about militant gays who shoot unarmed black security guards in the middle of downtown DC and find out what motivates them. Or what makes college professors shoot up their colleagues, something useful besides looking for boogeymen in the military.

    It’s almost as if there’s a concerted effort to write off the military in an election year. But, I guess I’m just being silly.

  • Fake gunman at Fort Belvoir

    Someone just sent this to me on Facebook; apparently the folks at Fort Belvoir, VA aren’t accustomed to seeing soldiers with guns;

    Fort Belvoir Police responded to a report of a possible gunman at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital just before 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. The individual was quickly detained without incident. Officials indicate the individual was carrying a training aid and not an actual weapon. Fort Belvoir initiated gate closures in accordance with established procedures to ensure the continued safety of the entire Belvoir community. The gates were restored to normal operations once the issue was resolved safely. Response and control of the situation were accomplished so swiftly Belvoir officials had no time to issue the announcement of gate closure before they were reopened.

    This isn’t to criticize anyone, it’s good that everyone was paying attention and reacted quickly.

  • Yet Another Green on Blue in Afghanistan

    From Fox News:

     A man in an Afghan police uniform shot and killed an international service member on Sunday, NATO said, raising the death toll to 10 in such attacks in the space of just two weeks.

    The nationality of the ISAF soldier killed was not released.

    Yeah, I’d guess the numerous repetitions we’ve seen of this kind of thing qualifies as a “pattern”.  And when patterns appear repeatedly in the enemy’s operations, as I recall that’s generally called a “tactic”.

    At least we finally seem to be treating this sort of thing as an enemy tactic vice an aberration.  It’s about damn time.

  • Update on Former AFRICOM Commander Brouhaha

    For those interested:  a redacted copy of the DoD IG Report of Investigation relating to GEN Ward is available.  I’ve only read the first 30 pages or so – but let’s just say that it doesn’t present the General in a particularly good light.  YMMV.

    No, the misconduct doesn’t rise to the level of that shown by COL Johnson.  Then again, tawdry bigamy cases are fairly rare.  And total dollar amount wasted by GEN Ward appears to have been much higher.

    It’s sad to see things like this happen, and I’m not naive enough to think it’s anywhere near the first time a 4-banger has pulled something like this.  But at least this time it appears there will be some consequences for doing so.

     

    (Edited by Hondo to add:  I’ve now read the rest of the report, and it’s not good either.)

  • On Patrol in the Gulf

    No, this isn’t “Navy week” here at TAH.  Well, not unless Jonn forgot to send me a copy of the memo.  (smile)  But this is indeed another nautically-themed article.

    Today our Navy rules the sea.  But lest we forget:  we’re not the only country with competent and capable naval forces.  Our Navy is damned good – but it’s not omnipotent, nor is it omniscient.  Any Navy has its limitations.  And sometimes the other guy is, well, just plain good.

    Recently, the Russian Navy apparently decided to remind us they exist.  They sent naval forces into the Gulf.

    As in, “the Gulf of Mexico”.

    No, I didn’t hear about it at the time.  That was by design on the part of the Russians.  The force they sent to the Gulf reportedly consisted of an Akula-class submarine.

    The Akula apparently was not detected while on patrol in the Gulf of Mexico.  It’s reputed to have operated there, without detection, for about a month.

    An Akula can reportedly carry cruise missiles – the SS-N-21 and the SS-N-27 – with the former having a range of just under 1,900 miles.  Though currently barred from a nuclear role by START-2, that missile is also capable of delivering a 200kT nuclear warhead.

    All of CONUS except for the extreme Pacific Northwest is less than 1,900 miles away from Galveston, TX.

    I have to say I find this a bit disconcerting.  Because history has repeatedly demonstrated – and sometimes taught us the hard way, like in 1941, 1950, 1968, and 2001 – the high cost of being complacent and ignoring potential threats.

    And I can’t see how defense cuts proposed for the next few years will improve the situation, either.