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

Category: Terror War

  • Generals plot against Obama [Jonn]

    There’s an article floating around the Left side of the web written by a goofball named Gareth Porter in which he claims that the generals are plotting against Obama’s (and Bush’s, by the way) to withdraw combat troops from the cities and towns of Iraq to isolated posts in the countryside.I found a linkable copy of the story in the Asia Times.

    Apparently the plot is to redesignate combat forces as non-combat forces to get around the wording of the status of forces agreement between the US and Iraq.

    By redesignating tens of thousands of combat troops as support troops, those officials apparently hope to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to insist on getting all combat troops of the country by mid-2010.

    General David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama’s 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative plan rejecting that timeline, as the New York Times reported on Thursday. That plan was communicated to Obama in general terms by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen when he met with his national security team in Chicago on December 15, according to the Times.

    First of all Professor Porter, the goal is to remove the troops by the end of 2011, not the middle of 2010. Please pay attention. Secondly, the generals are subordinates of the President, they are required by law to obey his orders, not find a way around his orders. And believe me, if the job is done, the generals want to get out of Iraq as badly as we want them out. Why would they want to sit around on their dead asses directing public works projects when they can be somewhere else killing jihadists? We are not an Army that likes occupation duties.

    Porter writes that Petreaus and Odierno opposed Obama’s 16-month withdrawal plan without mentioning that Obama first started that blather 21 months before the election. In the nearly two years of the Obama campaign, Patreaus’ and Odierno’s efforts changed the events on the ground for a 16-month withdrawal schedule to be possible. Time marches on, Gareth, situations change and they don’t remain static.

    So what’s Porter’s evidence that the Bushites are plotting to keep combat troops in cities and town of Iraq?

    The determination of the military leadership to ignore the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and to pressure Obama on his withdrawal policy was clear from remarks made by Mullen in a news conference on November 17 – after US ambassador Ryan Crocker had signed the agreement in Baghdad.

    Mullen declared he considered it “important” that withdrawal of US forces from Iraq “be conditions-based”.

    Gasp! Condition-based!? Ya mean, if there’s a war going on, we want to be part of it? Of course we do, ya dumbass. This isn’t a withdrawal for the sake of withdrawing. This isn’t an evacuation under fire, it’s not a retreat. I know you idiots on the Left aren’t used to it, but this is what victory looks like, Gareth, m’boy.

  • Blackfive requests comments [Jonn]

    Blackfive has a guest blog post written by Brigadier General Abe Abrams who explains the new Army FM 7-0 Full Spectrum Operations. I’ll admit that most of it is way over the head of this old Infantry platoon sergeant except the part where the general writes about training soldiers and flexibility.

    This event in itself is a milestone in the history of milblogs where a general takes the time to reach out to the old war horses for feedback through the blogs. But cruising past milestones is not new for Matt, I suppose.

    But anyway, I hope you can take the time to peruse the post and the FM and leave any thoughts you might have about the subject. I felt the old cobwebs falling out of the corners of my mind while I read it.

  • 10 Silver Stars

    Last night Just A Grunt emailed me about the 10 Special Forces operators that are being awarded Silver Stars today for a raid they conducted in conjunction with their Afghan commando trainees. The Washington Post writes this about the action;

    After jumping out of helicopters at daybreak onto jagged, ice-covered rocks and into water at an altitude of 10,000 feet, the 12-man Special Forces team scrambled up the steep mountainside toward its target — an insurgent stronghold in northeast Afghanistan.

    “Our plan,” Capt. Kyle M. Walton recalled in an interview, “was to fight downhill.”

    But as the soldiers maneuvered toward a cluster of thick-walled mud buildings constructed layer upon layer about 1,000 feet farther up the mountain, insurgents quickly manned fighting positions, readying a barrage of fire for the exposed Green Berets.

    A harrowing, nearly seven-hour battle unfolded on that mountainside in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province on April 6, as Walton, his team and a few dozen Afghan commandos they had trained took fire from all directions. Outnumbered, the Green Berets fought on even after half of them were wounded — four critically — and managed to subdue an estimated 150 to 200 insurgents, according to interviews with several team members and official citations.

    There’s more of the story at WaPo and there’s supposed to be a video of the battle floating around and I’ll try to find it. In the interim, here’s a video report from MSNBC with some of the combat footage;
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  • Bush accepts some blame for Abu Ghraib

    The Washington Times writes that President Bush, in an interview with a reporter from the Saudi-run Middle East Broadcasting Center accepts some blame for the Abu Ghraib scandal;

    President Bush for the first time took a measure of responsibility for the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, during an interview with an Arabic TV network.

    “Abu Ghraib was a terrible disappointment. And admittedly, I wasn’t there on the site, but I was the Commander-in-Chief of a military where these disgraceful acts took place that sent the absolute wrong image about America and our military,” Mr. Bush said.

    I understand that President Bush is trying to firm up his legacy, but I’m not sure I like this new guy in the White House. Yes, he’s the commander-in-chief, and yes, he bears a small measure of responsibility because he’s the commander, but not to the extent he admits.

    It was a crime committed by seven dimwits who claimed they didn’t know that naked pyramids were  somehow inappropriate. And then they were so stupid, they took pictures of their antics and emailed the photos around to their friends. Their friends knew it was wrong – so why didn’t the perpetrators know it was wrong? They all received the same Law of Land Warfare class in Basic Training.

    Yeah, it did damage the image of the military, but only because the US media ran the pictures day-in-and-day-out – like the flushed Koran fairietale – to purposely damage the country and the military and fan the violence in Iraq.

    I’m waiting 9with unabated breath) for the New York Times and Washington Post apologize for their behavior during this war.

  • Renwaa still updating battle in Mumbai (UPDATE)

    In case you folks haven’t noticed, Renwaa is still updating the battle from Mumbai in the comments section of the original post. According to Renwaa and news here in the States, the battle is still raging and, of course, the terrorists are losing. The situation has improved enough that crowds are forming outside to cheer on the police and counter-terrorism forces. According to the Washington Times, the death toll is over 143 now.

    CNN-IBN is streaming news live. Fox News confirms two Americans, a father and his 13-year-old daughter, were killed.

    If you’ve been off the net, you can catch up with this video from CNN-IBN;

    (more…)

  • Federal judge orders Gitmo prisoners released

    This is why courts and law don’t work when fighting terrorists. From the Washington Post;

    The decision came in the case of six Algerians who were detained in Bosnia after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and have been held at the military prison in Cuba for nearly seven years. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, a Bush appointee, ruled that five of the men must be released “forthwith” and ordered the government to engage in diplomatic efforts to find them new homes.
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    In an unusual move, Leon also urged the government not to appeal his ruling, saying “seven years of waiting for our legal system to give them an answer” was long enough.

    In the case of the sixth Algerian, Belkacem Bensayah, Leon found that the government had met its evidentiary burden and could continue to hold him. Bensayah’s lawyers said he would appeal.

    The judge urged the government to not appeal his ruling. Why? Because the decision was specious.

    In the case of the Algerians, the government presented mostly classified evidence in closed hearings that its attorneys asserted proved the men planned to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

    […]

    Leon said the government did not provide enough credible and reliable evidence during a series of closed hearings to justify the detentions of the five Algerians…. The government did not provide enough information about the source to determine whether he or she was credible or reliable, Leon ruled.

    Funny how these guys kept their mission secret and only confided in a single incredible and unreliable witness. So secret, that the judge didn’t want to believe the witness or the evidence against them. The government ought to establish a half-way house for these five in the residence next to Judge Leon‘s home – ya know, just to asimilate them into the real world since their long imprisonment.

  • US freezes assets of Chavez aides


    Yesterday, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez gave the US amabassador there 72 hours to close the US mission there and recalled his own ambassador. Prior to the announcement, Chavez manufactured a rally and assembled a crowd of supporters and told them that he had successfully twarted another coup attempt, ostensibly backed by the US. Jungle Mom posted this video in which Chavez called Americans “Yanquis de mierda” saying “we’ve had enough of your shit…” More of that excellent diplomacy to which we’ve become accustomed from Banana Boy. Val Prieto at Babalu Blog does a better translation than i can.

    As I wrote yesterday on my Latin American blog, Tall & Rich, the Venezuelan blog, The Devil’s Excrement, saw no evidence of a coup. It also comes the day after the legislature gave Chavez the authority to toss out foreign oil companies.

    The Miami Herald this morning, reports that the US retaliated by accusing thee Chavez aides of supporting the Colombian narco-terrorist group FARC.

    The move by the U.S. Treasury Department, a day after Chávez announced the expulsion of U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy, freezes any assets the three men may have under U.S. jurisdiction.

    Rodríguez Chacín is accused of helping the FARC obtain weapons, while the other two allegedly protected drug shipments. There was no immediate reaction to the sanctions from Venezuelan authorities.

    This all comes as Bolivia’s communist President Evo Morales expelled the US ambassador there for supposedly lending aid to the autonomy movement there;

    U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Washington ”regrets” the expulsions, which ”reflect the weakness and desperation” of the Chávez and Morales governments.

    Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro said McCormack’s statement was an attempt to ”cover up the reality of the decadent government of the United States.” A foreign ministry statement accused Washington of “repeated demonstrations of hostility.”

    It also comes on the day that a Miami judge is scheduled to sentence two Chavez agents in the maleta-gate scandal involving illegal campaign contributions to the Argentine elections from Chavez (el Universal link);

    A judge is to sentence on Friday, September 12 Venezuelan Moisés Maionica and Uruguayan Rodolfo Edgardo Waseele Paciello, who are accused of conspiring to act as covert agents of the Venezuelan government in US territory without Washington authorization in the so-called suitcase scandal, reported on Monday court sources.

    While part of the Russian Navy sails into Venezuelan waters, Chavez welcomed two Russian bombers to his country on Wednesday (France24 link);

    Two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers were in Venezuela on Wednesday for “training flights,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said, adding he would be piloting one of the aircraft.

    “I hope that stings, ‘pitiyanquis’,” he said, using a derogatory term for Venezuelan opponents who have perceived US sympathies.

    “What’s more, I’m going to take the controls of one of these monsters,” boasted the president, a former paratrooper and left-wing politician who has avowed antagonism towards the United States.

    Manuel at The Devil’s Excrement says there’s no evidence of Chavez actually piloting either of the aircraft yet…just more bluster from the little pudgy weasel.

    As I wrote yesterday, if I were Venezuelan, I’d be worried about who Chavez will accuse of undermining the Bolivarian Revolution after he tosses the yanquis out. The Real Cuba reports that the Bolivian Army has announced to Chavez that they won’t allow ANY foreign intervention;

    “To the President of Venezuela, Mr Hugo Chavez, and to the international community, we say that the armed forces (of Bolivia) emphatically reject any foreign intervention of any kind, wherever they be from,” Armed Forces Commander in Chief Luis Trigo said in a televised statement. “We will not allow any foreign soldier or armed force to set foot on our soil,” he added.

    In Latin American, the military defends the respective constitutions of their nations, not the political leaders. The Bolivian Army allows Morales to be President – that makes this pronouncement much more ominous than it seems.

    Thanks to Jimmy Carter…the gift that keeps on giving.

    Crossposted at Tall & Rich

  • We’re paratroopers, we’re supposed to be surrounded

    The above quote is from the movie “Band of Brothers” and spoken by Richard Winters when warned that he was about to be surrounded by Germans at Bastogne in December of 1944. Recent events near Wanat, Afghanistan indicates that the spirit of the Airborne still lives today as it did in World War II.

    Some of you may remember that I got to spend the evening with some of the reluctant heroes of that battle, from Chosen Company, 2/503rd, as well as Tankerbabe , a blogger who has adopted the unit.  She has put up several articles about the battle, and everytime I read one of them, I’m in awe of the guys with whom I had the honor of slamming back Carbombs (apparently Tankerbabe’s libation of choice).

    She has one article about a medic, Specialist Jonathan Kaderli, who has been nominated for a Bronze Star with a “V” and another about Specialist Tyler Stafford;

    “They knew our guys were in trouble, and when the Airborne’s in trouble, you don’t leave them to die; you go help them,” Stafford said. “They brought what they could.”

    The Americans were running low on ammunition, and some of them were so badly wounded they were unable to move, Stafford said.

    Help did not come for an hour, he said.

    Stafford eventually was helicoptered to safety. He said he looked back at the scene below while aboard the chopper.

    “It’s like one of the those movies out of like Vietnam that you see with all these special effects and everything’s on fire,” he recalled. “Smoke in the air, and that’s all you see is tracer rounds going back and forth … just, ‘boom, boom, boom.’ “

    Who needs movie stars when we have real people like this among us?

    Tankerbabe, also wants everyone to know that Annheuser Busch has donated 6,000 cans of beer to the Brigade for their homecoming next month. The best way to support paratroopers, I’ll tell you what. But keep an eye on Tankerbabe for the lastest on these extraordinary men.