At least some of the representatives we've elected to Congress over a year ago have finally been fertilized enough to grow some backbone. They stood up to the White House, please mark this date on your calendars. Too bad the Senate hasn't had their fill of manure.
...
Americans are worried and even angry about many things. Whether Osama bin Laden is throwing a party because AT&T and Verizon might have to defend themselves in court isn't one of them. Outside of National Review, K Street, and the fear-paralyzed imagination of our shrinking faux-warrior class, there is no constituency in America demanding warrantless eavesdropping or amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms.
...
I wonder if it's black tie? Could it be that upholding the rule of law in the United States would make al-Qaeda happy? I'll take that chance to know Americans' civil rights are protected.
***
Our new acquaintances over at Gorilla's Guides inform us that we're bringing peace and democracy to Iraq in a big way. Lights, running water, sewage removal? Puh! We got purple fingers:
Power failures and maintenance have disrupted running water supplies to almost half of the capital, Baghdad, home to nearly 6 million people.
A Baghdad Municipality source said the project supplying drinking water to Rasafa, the eastern half of Baghdad, was temporarily idle.
...
My CO when I was with SOCOM told me once that you can't give people democracy, especially out of the business end of a rifle, it has to come from within.
Nobody learns from history, though everybody claims to study it. I guess nobody learned about Russian winters (worse yet, Russian spring), and nobody learned that keeping an occupation force and battling an insurgency extort more costs than the imperialists are ultimately willing to bear. Unfortunately, nobody asked the Iraqis what costs they were willing to bear. One day (hopefully within my lifetime), I hope they will be able to say we've finally repaid the debt we owe them for a million dead and twice that displaced, for their looted and destroyed national treasures, and for the thuggery of attempting to steal their oil.
***
And let me just end on a personal observation. I've lived on four continents over the past 45 years. I've visited almost every other part of the world. I've known, and developed good friendships with, more than a few people indigenous to those places. After breaking down all the cultural and language differences, I am left with a truism that describes all of us.
We are all, regardless of place of birth or culture, more alike than different. The average guy on the street wants the same thing in China that he does here. He wants safety and security, a job where he can earn enough to pay the bills, and for his kids to have better than he did. He makes do with what he has, whether under a democratic system or not, to make a decent life for his family. It's all about respect and dignity.
Please feel free to comment on whatever you'd like, whether it be on the subject of the post or not - F.
The Silver Star is the Army’s third highest award for valor. It is awarded in recognition of outstanding effort and courage in combat and is not come by easily. Some say that it is an award much easier to gain posthumously than standing up, and that’s probably true.
Two soldiers at Ft Lewis were recently awarded the Silver Star and a brief look at the circumstances of the awards are educational. An award citation is a brief and sometimes a too-brief narration of the situation. The scenes recounted here are not necessarily unique. Similar sights might happen anywhere in the country on any day. The valor certainly isn't unique. The only unusual thing is that the actions of these men were somehow pointed out for well-deserved recognition.
Who They Were
SFC Ismael Iban and SSG Jon Hillard, who returned from Iraq in September, are both members of the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. At the ceremony, held at 1:30pm Pacific Time at the Sheridan Gym at Fort Lewis, both Soldiers were honored for their valorious actions in combat.
The Citation
“SFC Iban’s steadfast leadership and dauntless presence was instrumental in leading his 12-man platoon to overcome incredible odds presented by the enemy,” according to the narrative. “With absolute decisiveness, calmness under pressure and personal courage, SFC Iban’s performance on 19 February 2007 directly contributed to saving his fellow soldiers’ lives in Tarmiya, Iraq.”
The Narration
SFC Iban, a platoon sergeant with 3rd Platoon, C Company, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment was recognized for actions that he took on February 19, 2007. That day, a suicide car bomber destroyed the Tarmiya Joint Security Station, located near Taji, Iraq. Iban and his platoon were conducting a patrol about 6 miles from the station, when they were called to provide assistance.
Iban ordered his platoon to respond. As they entered the outskirts of Tarmiya, they were attacked by small-arms fire and rocket propelled grenades, coming from alleys nearby, as well as rooftops. The Soldiers returned fire and continued on to the badly damaged Joint Security Station. As they approached, they saw that it was engulfed in flames and smoke, with a huge pile of debris from the explosion blocking the road. It was then that Iban and 4 of his Soldiers got out of their Stryker vehicle and moved on foot the 250 feet it took to get to the JSS, under constant enemy fire.
When they arrived, Iban established a command and control point, and he and his men began to prepare for medical evacuation of 21 wounded US Soldiers. The rest of the platoon, meanwhile worked diligently, while under enemy fire, to clear a path on the roadway, so that a defensive perimeter could be created.
Iban loaded the more seriously wounded Soldiers into his Stryker vehicle and began moving them to the nearest helicopter landing zone. As they arrived, they were hit by an attack, with the enemy firing 7 RPGs and multiple machine guns from the nearby woods and buildings. Iban ordered his Soldiers to set up a perimeter and engage the enemy. He meanwhile dismounted and provided additional suppressive fire, to enable 4 medivac helicopters to land. The team moved while receiving intense fire, to load 9 critically wounded Soldiers into the helicopters. These actions were repeated by Iban and his men until all 21 wounded Soldiers were safely aboard the helicopters.
The citation tells none of the drama and fear of the moment, when the conscious mind might freeze, but training and instinct take control and soldiers rise to a threat. Oftentimes you have no idea whatsoever what you did, that they’re now praising so highly. You might remember the gut-griping and the tunnel vision created by adrenalin and later you might have noticed the shakes. You just somehow did what you’d been trained to do, and no country can ask more than that of a man soldier.
On March 24, 2007, while conducting clearance operations in a Baqubah neighborhood, Hilliard and his Soldiers from 3rd Platoon, B Company, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, were hit by a buried IED. The explosion was massive enough to catch the rear of their Stryker vehicle on fire and disable it. 7 Soldiers on board were injured.
The Citation
“Single handedly, he exposed himself on top of the burning Stryker while under accurate machine gun fire for approximately three minutes while the platoon maneuvered to establish a defensive position for the [casualty evacuation]… “SSG Hilliard’s bravery in the face of fire, tireless efforts and selfless service were instrumental in the successful recovery and evacuation of men, weapons and equipment, as well as the destruction of numerous [anti-Iraqi forces],” according to the narrative. “His actions and his demeanor were truly inspirational to those present throughout these actions.”
When the explosion occurred, Hilliard, who was riding in the rear right air guard hatch, was ejected onto the top of the Stryker vehicle. He suffered multiple injuries to his left leg. Despire his injuries, Hilliard, who is a squad leader, immediately focused his attention on his Soldiers. He saw that the ramp door has been blown off in the explosion and smoke had filled the Troop compartment. The explosion that ejected him from the vehicle, also caused him to lose his weapon. As other Soldiers arrived to provide support, they came under a sustained volley of accurate and deadly machine gun fire. Hilliard saw a M204B Machine Gun that was tangled in a sniper camouflage netting nearby. He used his knife to cut the weapon free and grabbed a box of ammunition.
…
As the other wounded Soldiers were evacuated, Hilliard suppressed multiple enemy machine gun positions. After a defensive perimeter was established, Hilliard got off of the Stryker vheicle and gained control of the remaining men in his squad, as well as grabbing his weapon which had been blown off the vehicle during the explosion. He then realized that the M204B he had been using was now with 1st Platoon.
He then raced across 165 feet of open terrain to retrieve the weapon, under small arms fire and and RPG. He retrieved his weapon and then turned to rejoin his platoon, when he collapsed from his injuries and was no longer able to walk. He was then medically evacuated to FOB Warhorse to receive treatment for his injuries.
I despise this evil and dishonest occupation of a conquered country and I have nothing but the spit from my mouth and the contents of my bladder for the cowards who lied us into this catastrophe that is destroying two nations.
However SFC Iban and SSG Hilliard might personally feel about the terrorists we are creating in Iraq they kept their obligations to their men and fought to save them, and they have honored all of us by their loyalty.
WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $1.4 million fine against 52 ABC Television Network stations over a 2003 broadcast of cop drama NYPD Blue.
The fine is for a scene where a boy surprises a woman as she prepares to take a shower. The scene depicted "multiple, close-up views" of the woman's "nude buttocks" according to an agency order issued late Friday.
ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co. The fines were issued against 52 stations either owned by or affiliated with the network.
FCC's definition of indecent content requires that the broadcast "depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities" in a "patently offensive way" and is aired between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
The agency said the show was indecent because "it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs , specifically an adult woman's buttocks."
The agency rejected the network's argument that "the buttocks are not a sexual organ."
This is such a target-rich paragraph…
This happened in 2003. Now it is 2008. Our FCC is just now waking up from its long slumber and discovering that a woman took a shower in 2003. Apparently taking showers is offensive to the Miss Prudes at the FCC. They’re OK with Michael Savage’s and John Gibson’s obscenities, but showers are right out of the permissible box.
Note also that Disney, that wonderful republican company that brought you the 9/11 film lies, is involved in sexual pandering. How horrible! What will Mickey say?
By the way, the FCC has now officially endorsed the republican position that buttocks are in fact a sexual organ. Just in case all the pederasts and perverts among the republican politician class hadn’t known that.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Police faced a difficult if not impossible task Thursday as they tried to stop the spread of pornographic video and photos of two high school girls, images that were transmitted by cell phone to dozens of the girls' classmates and then to the wider world.
District Attorney James B. Martin said at least 40 Parkland High School students believed to have received the images would not face prosecution as long as they show their phones to police by Tuesday to ensure the images have been erased.
But students at the school said the distribution was far more widespread.
"Most people got it and kept passing it along for fun to everyone in their phonebook," said Jon Gabriel, 16, a junior who said he received and deleted the images.
Apparently teeners in Allentown no longer engage in cow-tipping. Maybe they’ve been watching too much NYPD Blue, or too many half-time shows of NFL championship games. They’re doing exactly what teenagers have done for about 4,000 years, but it seems they’re not ashamed of it.
And that is probably what has the authorities all hysterical, because they seem to believe sex is dirty, and shameful, and has to be hidden away, lest the kids’ bestial natures come to the fore.
Let me add this as a troll prophylactic: I don’t endorse teenage sex. I don't need to; teenagers find out about it all by themselves, and if I had a teenaged child I’d try to discourage it, because it does distract you from other things, like school, and studying, and chores, and authorized extra-curricular activities like team sports and band and such. Failing that, I’d make damned sure they knew about the marvels of latex.
Despite the best efforts of parental figures I did it, and was damned glad I could. (Thank you, Regina West, Leslie Newman, and Jillian Kauffman. Wherever you are today let me hope you are happy.) And if my school grades suffered a bit I think I was a happier young man for it.
A state trooper was sent to the school Thursday and will return for two more days to ensure that images were erased from the cell phones of students whose parents got letters from prosecutors. The letter explained what had happened, set a deadline for erasing the images and asked the parents to sign consent forms.
Martin said students who fail to comply by the deadline could be prosecuted in juvenile court for possession of child pornography.
One of the girls in the pictures is shown engaging in a sex act with an unidentified boy, Martin said. The other girl took and transmitted a photo of her bare breasts, he said.
Martin said he was not certain if the girl shown having sex had known she was being photographed. As for the other student, "she's a victim and she's not a victim," he said.
"Our thrust has been to get the kids to come forward and we've indicated we will not charge them for possessing the images," Martin told The Associated Press. "I'm not sure what we're going to do with the participants at this point."
This is just stunning. Is there no crime at all in Pennsylvania? Don’t they understand that blowing this up to such an incredible extent just makes everybody more curious about it all?
I’m sure District Attorney James B. Martin is a very effective prosecutor, and I’m certain he’s hell on wheels with serious crime. I know he worked very hard to get to the bottom of the Charles Cullen matter, but I am glad I’m not one of his children. I will wonder whether his kids are required to have their cell phones examined every night.
The Federal government of Australia has taken to warning its citizens of the dangers of traveling abroad. And one of the more dangerous countries apparently is – Canada!
Oh, Canada!
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
Ummm, all the Australians I have ever known would be offended if you tried to warn them they were in danger. In fact, a couple of them would turn downright violent if you tried to suggest there was something tougher than them down the road. And that was before a liter or two of Fosters or Barefoot Radler.
Be that as it may, herewith the official Australian list of Canadian dangers:
Terrorists, thieves and tornadoes - oh, Canada!
Australians considering a trip to the Great White North may find themselves quickly making other plans after reading their federal government's travel advisory on Canada.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently updated its "Smart Traveller" website - intended to give travellers "up-to-date information about the risks Australians might face overseas" - and classified the world's nations into five categories based on their current "security situation."
Canada falls into the second safest category, called "exercise caution" (not as safe as Chile, Romania and South Korea), with terrorism listed as the top concern. [emph added]
"We advise you to exercise caution and monitor developments that might affect your safety in Canada because of the risk of terrorist attack," the website reads.
"Pay close attention to your personal security and monitor the media for information about possible new safety or security risks."
While the crime rate in Canada is acknowledged to be "similar to that of Australia," tourists are warned to remain vigilant as "pick pocketing and street theft occurs at tourist destinations, hotels and on public transit."
I’ll note in passing that before Canadians got themselves saddled with a conservative national government the greatest danger was the loss in value of the dollar (dollar Francaisé in Quebec) when shopping in the States. Now it’s all terror, all the time up there.
Those conservatives sure know how to be terrified of people with brown skins, though, don’t they? Why, a cynical man might think they’re just like our conservatives.
Somehow I don’t think Canada is less safe than Chile or Romania. It doesn’t seem like Chile has a great deal of terrorism activity now that they have a leftie government and have clamped down on the rightwing paramilitary goons. And I know the biggest danger in Romania is having your car stolen. Whereas in Canada – I’ve seen the Canadiens play at Madison Square Garden and the Islanders were not terrified.
And if you thought the dangers of wingmen with suicide hockey pucks was bad, wait till you hear about the Canadian climate!
The section on climate, which was just updated with new information about natural disasters, would turn even the most hardened adventurer away.
"Heavy snowfalls and ice in the winter can make driving dangerous. The wind-chill factor can also create dangerously cold outdoor conditions. ... The province of British Columbia in western Canada is in an active earthquake zone. Alberta and British Columbia are also subject to avalanches. ... Tornadoes can occur in some areas of Canada between May and September. Bush and forest fires can occur any time in Canada."
If I weren’t such an adventurous, laugh-at-danger kind of guy, I’d probably cross Canada off my list of refuge countries in the event of another Republican in the White House.
But I think the real motivation of the Australian government trying to keep their cobbers out of Canada is fear that they might try Molson Golden Ale. They'd definitely overstay their visas.
This morning’s NY Times has a classic hit piece written by Michael Powell and Chris Bluettner that excoriates Presidential hopeful (heh!) Rudy Giuiani. It seems Mr Giuliani practiced the Bu$h method of political control while mayor. A vengeful, petty tyrant who uses his underlings to punish anyone who dares speak against his “greatness.” And most surprisingly, he’s a republican!
We learn that he went after a whistleblower complaining about some sort of police department sting at a Bronx Zoo traffic light, and the cops were sent to his house to arrest him on a 13-year old traffic warrant which was thrown out of court. The man won a $290,000 settlement for being treated illegally. A case worker revealed the city had made mistakes in assessing and handling a child’s danger in a domestic manner and the child died as a result. The case worker was fired.
The list goes on and on.
[F]ar more than his predecessors, historians and politicians say, his toughness edged toward ruthlessness and became a defining aspect of his mayoralty. One result: New York City spent at least $7 million in settling civil rights lawsuits and paying retaliatory damages during the Giuliani years.
That’s not toughness; that’s being a bully. An outraged man would consider the very long list of Americans publicly crucified by Mr Bu$h's Renfields.
There’s been a lot of recent commentary in blogtopia (y!sctp) about Mr Giuliani being a “small man in search of a balcony” and other such comparisons with Benito Mussolini, along with some very imaginative (and cruel) photoshopping of the late Mr Mussolini and Mr Giuliani, who, it appears has a political career that could be described as “late.”
Bloggers will be bloggers. There will always be people who will point fingers and keyboards in derision at political figures. That goes with the glamour of being a public figure. If you don’t want to be vulnerable to public scorn pick a trade that doesn’t put you in front of cameras.
The thing that bothers me most about today’s Times article is its applicability.
Where were you clowns six years ago, when a democracy slowly being strangled needed people other than Democrats held up for ridicule?
Richard Knerr died this week. He was 82. He and a childhood friend, Arthur Melin, formed the Wham-o company, and the result was a 50 year toy company which brought us some of the most significant cultural icons of our youth, (Well, maybe my youth. You young whippersnappers might not know what the hula hoop was.)
Wham-o also produced the killer toys called Frisbees, the Super-ball, and something called Slip-n-Slide. But one of their best toys was a silly little bit of frippery called Silly String. There’s no really good way to describe Silly String. It is asshattery in a can. Mothers all over the US were frantically happy that it’s easy to pick up off tables, lamps, coat racks, shelf units, fish tanks and even cocker spaniels.
There is a military use for Silly String: spray it across a suspect area, or in a room, and it hangs up on tripwires. Several ladies across the nation have campaigned for donations to ship the stuff where it was needed, as featured in this CBS TV report.
The campaign seemed to have been a big hit with folks at home.
And it has been appreciated by the REMF troops, too.
While discussing the V-22 Osprey in the past I noted that it’s a bit light in the self-defense department.
The machine itself is a big step forward for the Corps and I know we’re all rooting for it to deliver the snuffies somewhere near the crash and clangor of battle – but not too close, since they only carry one .30 machine gun for defensive fire, and the rear ramp has to be lowered to use it. [emph added]
The immediate image I had was the mandatory requirement to land four of these babies at a time, nose in, with their rear ramps facing out in order to provide some fire suppression. This was not a happy picture. It seems some other people had the same stomach griping I did.
Air Force and Marine Corps V-22 Ospreys may get a turret-mounted machine gun, fulfilling a long-sought requirement for a forward-firing defensive weapon and making it unique among today’s U.S. transport aircraft.
…
A nose gun was considered early in the tilt-rotor’s two-decade gestation but was branded too costly, Air Force requirements officials said.
The fiscal 2008 supplemental request includes $82 million for research, development and testing of an “all-quadrant,” or 360-degree, defensive weapon to augment the ramp-mounted 7.62mm machine gun the Marines use for now.
Navy program spokesman James Darcy said there is no timetable for finding such a gun, and the search will be bound by finances and the plodding acquisition process.
“SOCom is looking at a faster turnaround,” Darcy said. “But Air Force Special Operations Command is flying a different mission than the Marine Corps.”
I suppose that SOCOM feels that, unlike the Marine Corps, they are sent into areas where they’re not welcome. Imagine that: the Marines not having opposed landings.
There are 10 Marine Ospreys in Iraq right now, and they’re hauling troops and trash (supplies) around on logistical missions, although I have heard reports that the biggest use of Ospreys has been to haul around VIPs rather than supplies or troops. As I said, “trash.”
SOCOM put out requests for program solutions last September seeking an “all-quadrant” defensive weapon system to be ready within 120 days of contract signing.
But for the most part, those requirements are intentionally vague, he said, leaving the door open for industry to be as innovative as possible. It is not even specified whether the system should be fully integrated into the aircraft in the future or if a drop-in solution is the best plan.
“There are advantages and disadvantages to total, permanent integration,” said Air Force Maj. Rob Pittman of the Air Force acquisition office. “The quick-and-dirty solution that gets the job done might be the answer.”
One contractor, BAE Systems, has started design work already on such a system.
[…] BAE Systems has been spending its own money to develop the Remote Guardian System, a turreted, remote-operated, retractable weapon that could be fielded in the third quarter of 2008 and fitted aboard the V-22 and other aircraft, said Clark B. Freise, vice president and general manager of defense avionics for BAE.
“We’ve been investing for two years and created our own program to develop the capability,” Freise said.
While Freise would not say how much BAE has spent or how much it would charge per weapon, he did say the price would be low enough to appeal to the Pentagon and high enough to recoup its investment.
“We spent a lot of money on it,” he said. “We found a hole in their protection, we’re covering it for now, and we’ll get it back. We’d rather not say how much we’ve invested. We have shared with the Marine Corps what we think it will cost to go into production, and it is significantly lower than other solutions.”
Before the Marine Corps gets too deeply invested in new technology (and BAE'$ $olution will be an inve$tment) it might be wise to point out that the Army feels it has already recognized and resolved this problem.
The U.S. Army plans to outfit thousands more vehicles with Common Remotely Operated Weapon Stations (CROWS), which allow gunners to fire on targets from the safety of armored crew compartments.
In August, Army officials intend to choose one firm from among several competitors to receive a contract for 1,500 CROWS stations. In total, the contract could grow to as many as 6,500 CROWS, Army officials said.
“The Army is looking at the CROWS system for the up-armored Humvee, Fox [reconnaissance vehicle], RG-31 [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] and the Abrams [tank], so right now the Army is trying to finalize the basis of issue regarding how many CROWS to order and who gets them,” said Richard Audette, deputy project manager for soldier weapons at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey.
It takes one week to train soldiers.
Now, I know I get active duty readers from the Corps, and from CENTCOM and the Pentagon, and I have been hard on your bosses. It’s not that I hate officers, gentlemen. I understand they think differently, that’s all. The CROWS system has been test-driven in the sandbox, and the GIs seem to like it.
Not only can you bring along your best friend (Ma Deuce) and you don’t have to carry it! And you can fit out the installation with the Mk 19. That has got to be a popular feature.
Frequent commenter Tim brought this Gulf Newseditorial to our attention and it’s perhaps noteworthy since it appeared in an independent but government-approved newspaper in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
Dear Mr. President;
Lest you forget. Invasion of Iraq. Thousands of dead. Looting the National Museum. Disbanding the Iraqi army. Donald Rumsfeld. Shock and Awe. Jay Garner. Paul Bremer. Inciting sectarianism. Abu Ghraib. Thousands of detainees without charges. Torture. Oil. Ghost WMDs. The Niger connection. Halliburton. Blackwater. Deadly security contractors. Mercenaries. Fallujah. Haditha massacre. Blind support of Israel. Instigating the suffering of Gaza. Ignoring the expansion of illegal colonies. Defying United Nations resolutions. Securing "a Jewish State". Allowing Israelis to extend the destruction of Lebanon in the 2oo6 war. Providing Israel with new Bunker Buster bombs to attack Lebanese towns. The War on Terror. "The Crusade". Clash of civilisations. Where is Osama Bin Laden? Afghanistan. Bagram massacre. Bombing media offices. Guantanamo Bay. Kangaroo courts. Indefinite detention. Presidential orders to ignore Geneva Conventions. "Unlawful enemy combatants". Illegal National Security Agency wiretapping. Fingerprinting visitors. Black prisons. Kidnapping foreign citizens on foreign lands. Khalid Al Masri. Abu Omar. Maher Arar. Central Intelligence Agency. "Aggressive interrogation techniques". Destroying the torture tapes. Iran tension. Isolating Syria. Embracing Syrian opposition Iraq style. The Chavez coup. Denial of global warming. Rejecting Kyoto Protocol. Marginalisation of the United Nations. John Bolton. Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank. Carl Rove. Alberto Gonzales. Firing attorneys. Nepotism. False democracy promises. Dick Cheney, Dick Cheney and Dick Cheney.
Mr President;
The list goes on. You might not be able to recall some of it. But the people around you, Cheney and Condoleezza Rice especially, would. And they realise that on the subject of human rights, your administration has had the worst record of all, surpassing most Third World countries. The tension and the misery in parts of this region can very well testify to this.
Mr President;
In a famous speech in 2003 you announced an "historic" shift in US foreign policy. You pledged to support democracy and liberty while declaring "victory" in Iraq. More than four years later, Iraq is in chaos. It has virtually disintegrated and "the surge" did little to stop the killing or ease the sectarian tension. At the same time, you gave up on your freedom-for-all prophecy. We are all back to the old ways of doing business - arms and oil. The agenda of your current tour is evident.
Mr President;
This is your first official trip to a land you long claimed has a very special place in your heart. The land of the Prophets. However, you started out wrong. By maintaining your support of an Israeli "Jewish State", you are flouting your own ideals upon which your great country was founded more than two centuries ago. So much for the promise of democracy. What you advocate in fact is the creation of states on religious and racial lines, thereby justifying the atrocious actions of terrorists who hate and seek to eliminate the followers of other religions: The same terrorists you like to blame for every ill on earth and every failure of yours.
Mr President;
It has been reported that you are here to "lecture" us on democracy and human rights. But with a record like yours, you will not be very convincing. The people you are addressing have greater respect for human rights and dignity.
You also said that your current tour aims to realise the long neglected peace in the Middle East. Regional peace, Mr President, will not be achieved by escalating tension and threatening to change regimes. And most importantly, it will not be achieved by supporting Israel, which continues to defy international law, occupy Arab lands, oppress the Palestinians and rebuff peace initiatives.
Mr President;
We hope you have enjoyed the trip so far. The scenery is great. The food is exotic. As for the more "serious" things, it is unlikely you will make any difference.
It’s said that in the UAE, it’s all about business. It appears the businessmen that own this paper might consider Mr Bu$h’s life and times far too expensive. Before you all go getting too smiley-faced about this, let’s remember that it was “businessmen” in the UAE who financed 15 Saudi Arabian terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001.
Nethoggers’ Cernig has picked up on Larissa Alexandrovna’s echoing of my commentary 10 days ago regarding the post-shooting bomb blast at the assassination of the Bu$h malAdministration’s beard, Benazir Bhutto. (I’m not being harsh about Ms Bhutto. Her death was a tragedy for Pakistan, despite her family’s rather spotted record of corruption and alleged skimming of that country’s national treasury.)
Three former US intelligence officials have told Raw Story that not only is the gunman dead, he was likely the actual target of the suicide bomber.
According to a former high ranking US intelligence official, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the delicate nature of the information, the US intelligence community understands the gunman to have been killed in the blast following Mrs. Bhutto's assassination.
"He was killed, probably not knowing that the suicide bomber was there," said this source. "We don't know for sure if the two men arrived together. We do know that the assassin died in the explosion, and was probably meant to."
I certainly don’t know anything about political assassinations, because I will deny that’s a skill set the US Army teaches its soldiers. But if I wanted to take a very important political target I wouldn’t use just one hitter. I might have a gunman in close in case the opportunity presented itself, and I might back him up with a dedicated zealot willing to kill himself (and the target) with a bomb. (This would also ensure the gunman couldn’t talk later.)
The fact that Ms Bhutto was in what is reported to have been an armored vehicle might well have mandated the bomb, should the pistol attack have failed. Providentially (or unfortunately) the pistol worked, and the bomb created further death and chaos, as well as silencing the shooter. It’s probably just coincident that the person with the vest bomb just happened to be standing right next to the shooter, eh?
Never one to leave a healing scab on a wound, I speculated further,
In case of failure I’d also have a couple of teams along the route of retreat, possibly with sophisticated anti-vehicle weapons, like RPGs. And I would need a spotter at middle distance to advise the cutoff teams whether the first attack failed, to alert them of the target’s approach.
While the suspicion of the world community has rightly settled on President Musharraf, having an inconvenient competitor eliminated in what can be passed off as a regrettable terrorist incident saves a lot of face for the Pakistani government. Face they promptly lost when they initiated an on-again, off-again series of speculations and laughable explanations about car roof levers and such. Shutting up the doctors after the fact was a nice touch, because it immediately switched the focus of the news cycle buzz from the killing to the cover up.
The danger in all this lies with the possibility that the USG might lose confidence in Musharraf, or at least more confidence than they had lost as evidenced by the insistence of Mr Bu$h and our alleged Russian expert, Ms Rice, that only Benazir Bhutto could save Pakistan from a fate worse than death. Or something.
And the only thing that could have pushed the Bu$h people to change course in Pakistan would have been the commentariat and punditocracy figuring it all out, spurred by a lot of questions from the man in the street inside the US.
Fortunately the only news audience that the Bu$hies ever pay attention to is domestic consumption. Propaganda Public diplomacy at its best, Bu$h-style. And the US corporate media has cooperated magnificently, speculating endlessly about neck wounds and moon roof levers and fortunately ignoring the first rule of political assassination: cui bono? How lucky.
As I said at the time,
I’m not saying anything. I‘m just saying eventually the truth will surface.
It should be obvious to any conscious mind that Ms Bhutto in exile was a minimal threat to President Musharraf. She was out of the country and has been noted in many places she was basically the heart and soul of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party. While it is true that any exiled politician with strong domestic support is a danger to incumbents, the simple fact is that she could not have re-entered the country without the state’s permission, and the PPP was sufficiently neutered so that there was no chance of a “students’ rebellion” a la Iran, 1979, which would gave paved the way for her triumphant return to replace the incumbent President.
I still find it hard to believe that the Bu$h malAdministration really believed they were going to get President Musharraf to shuffle off into retirement so easily, so they must have figured that they could prevail on Musharraf to allow Ms Bhutto to be Prime Minister and actually allow US forces to operate in the NWFP and FATA in order to somehow to something to distract the Taliban and al Qaeda from operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we have seen before that, they take counsel from their dreams, rather than from their fears.
Cernig ends his piece on a high note.
Can Bush at least stop selling the General-in-plainclothes advanced weaponry (e.g. nuke-capable fighters, anti-tank missiles, airborne early warning platforms) more useful against his neighbours than extremists, even if it does help line US arms manufacturers pockets with US taxpayers' money?
Gorilla’s Guides discussed missing children yesterday, starting with a 2007 UNICEF report on the subject. (Story originates with Al Jazeera, no link to UNICEF)
- An estimated 2 million children in Iraq continue to face threats including poor nutrition, disease and interrupted education.
- Many of the 220,000 displaced children of primary school age had their education interrupted.
- An estimated 760,000 children (17 per cent) did not go to primary schools in 2006.
- An average 25,000 children per month were displaced by violence or intimidation, with their families seeking shelter in other parts of Iraq.
- In 2007, approximately 75,000 children had resorted to living in camps or temporary shelters.
- Hundreds of children lost their lives or were injured by violence and many more had their main family wage-earner kidnapped or killed.
That’s the big picture.
For a closeup:
Abu Muhammad, a Baghdad resident, found it difficult to let go of his daughter’s hand but he had already convinced himself that selling her to a family outside Iraq would provide her with a better future.
“The war disgraced my family. I lost relatives including my wife among thousands of victims of sectarian violence and was forced to sell my daughter to give my other children something to eat,” he told Al Jazeera.
In 2006, Abu Muhammad and his family were forced to leave their home in Adhamiya, a district of Baghdad, after militia fighting claimed the streets in his once tranquil neighbourhood.
They began living in a makeshift refugee camp on the outskirts of Baghdad, but he soon lost his job and the children, unable to make the daily trek, quit school.
“There wasn’t enough money to spend on books, clothes and transport,” he said. His daughter, Fatima, the youngest of four children, began to show signs of malnourishment and a local medic said she had become anaemic.
Desperation
By mid-2007, conditions for his family had become desperate and his children, once healthy and bubbling with life, had become gaunt and lethargic.
It was then that a translator and a Swedish couple claiming to be part of an international NGO arrived in the makeshift refugee camp.
“They heard about my situation and the woman, who said she could not have babies, offered some money to give her my youngest daughter of two years old,” he said.
“I refused in the beginning but the Iraqi translator was constantly coming at the camp and insisting with the same question. One day I found that my children would die without food and a clean environment and the next time he came to my tent, I told him that I agreed.”
He gave the translator all personal documents and after a week the couple came with new documents for Abu Muhammad to sign, authorising the adoption and to pick up his daughter.
Abu Muhammad, who received $10,000, believes he is now damned by God, but he says his inner turmoil is allayed somewhat by his belief that Fatima will have a better life than many in Iraq.
“I could see her love in the first time she looked at her,” he said of the adoptive mother.
I usually like to comment on stories like this. I’m too ashamed of what my country has wrought to say anything.
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto will keep the pundits busy for days if not weeks as they endlessly anal-ize (GI-speak for talking out of your fourth point of contact) the matter.
Unsurprisingly, the American Corporate Media are treating the story as if it’s all about them, which is to mean (breathlessly) how will this affect the Presidential horse race and Sophomore Class King or Queen of the Prom? Yesterday we were treated to ghoulish discussion among the bobbleheads about how Ms Bhutto’s death is good for Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. Or maybe it’s good for Mitt Romney. Or maybe for Barack Obama. Anyway, it’s got to be good for someone.
Parents will recognize this reaction. If you’ve raised children you’ve undoubtedly noted that 5 year olds consistently live in a centric universe. Everything revolves around them, and so it is with the children of our corporate media.
If Ms Bhutto’s assassination doesn’t impact the horse race then it means the children with the microphones are no longer important!
Frequent commenter Shanks opined that possibly the Pakistani security forces failed to discover the assassin with his pistol and bomb because there was a dark plan to slip a couple of “special weapons” to the evil Iranians in the ensuing chaos, but he knows that’s not realistic, and was just winding my watch stem to see what happened.
This assassination was intended to remove a domestic danger to the status quo in Pakistan. Whether the agent(s) of change were set in place by President Musharraf, the ISI or some other entity like a-Q may eventually be determined.
I will tell you this: a-Q tends to use the bomb for assassination. They attacked the World Trade Center in 1993 by bomb. They attacked the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam by bomb in 1998. The attacked the World Trade Center again in 2001with flying bombs. And you will remember that Ahmed Shah Masood, the “Lion of Afghanistan” was killed by a-Q proxies with a bomb concealed in a video camera on the same day the WTC was successfully destroyed. Of the almost 4,000 US troops killed in Iraq, the majority have died by bomb, either placed and fired off by a-Q or by the Iraqi resistance in imitation.
The gun is more a weapon favored by Westerners, but do not impute anything special to this fact because it has been used throughout the Arab world. The bomb is just more spectacular, and perhaps more certain.
Attaturk points out that there are many correlations between deaths in the Bhutto family and the Pakistani military, taking up a cut from a report from a McClatchy article this morning.
The assassination occurred in this garrison city housing the headquarters of the Pakistan army, an institution that has always seemed opposed to Bhutto. A couple of miles away across Rawalpindi, a previous military regime had executed her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first democratically elected prime minister, in 1979, when she was 26.
Police officers had frisked the 3,000 to 4,000 people attending Thursday's rally when they entered the park, but as the speakers from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party droned on, the police abandoned many of their posts. As she drove out through the gate, her main protection appeared to be her own bodyguards, who wore their usual white T-shirts inscribed: "Willing to die for Benazir."[emph added]
To drive the point home, Attaturk adds,
When people just dismiss the anger of Pakistanis at Musharraf and the military regime in Pakistan over Bhutto's death, the lack of context is staggering. Not only because Benazir Bhutto's close relations were killed at the hands of the military; but because even if her death was not directly caused by the regime, it set in place the forces that probably did.
I certainly don’t know anything about political assassinations, because I will deny that’s a skill set the US Army teaches its soldiers. But if I wanted to take a very important political target I wouldn’t use just one hitter. I might have a gunman in close in case the opportunity presented itself, and I might back him up with a dedicated zealot willing to kill himself (and the target) with a bomb. (This would also ensure the gunman couldn’t talk later.) In case of failure I’d also have a couple of teams along the route of retreat, possibly with sophisticated anti-vehicle weapons, like RPGs. And I would need a spotter at middle distance to advise the cutoff teams whether the first attack failed, to alert them of the target’s approach.
I’m not saying anything. I‘m just saying eventually the truth will surface.
In the meantime, let’s examine some of the consequences. The US plan to use Ms Bhutto as a moderating influence on President Musharraf is in tatters, just in case they were ever serious about letting the flowers of democracy blossom in Pakistan. That would be a first, by the way, because they haven’t shown any interest in democracy in Iraq or the US, but it did look good in newspapers.
The resultant civil unrest throughout Pakistan seems to require a harsh hand to clamp down right now. Perhaps fortunately, President Musharraf recently made some changes in the national Supreme Court, who will most likely endorse any suggestions he has for emergency measures to restore calm. And he’s no longer commander of the Army, so there’s that clear arms-length distance to ensure propriety if he declares martial law.
We’ve poured billions of dollars into Pakistan, claiming that it is a bulwark in the fight against the International War of Terror™ and for our troubles we’ve gotten A Q Khan giving nuclear reactor and weaponry information to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Our best friend President Musharraf sentenced Mr Khan to house arrest after pardoning him.
The Taliban and a-Q have been proliferating in safety in the North West Provinces, specifically Waziristan. The Pakistani Army seems unable to deal with the G’s up there. There were plans to use American Special Ops personnel in the North West, starting in January in an effort to track down some of the G’s hiding places.
There was great play about Secretary of State Rice going to Pakistan in order to straighten out President Musharraf and his working arrangement with Ms Bhutto, thereby restoring some degree of domestic and international legitimacy to a strongman, and now that’s down the tubes.
A man blinking in dazzled despair might ask how many more ways can the Bu$h malAdministration screw the pooch in Pakistan?
Dec. 27, 2007 | The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Thursday provoked rioting in Islamabad and Karachi, with her supporters blaming President Pervez Musharraf, while he pointed his finger at Muslim extremists. The renewed instability in Pakistan came as a grim reminder that the Bush administration has been pursuing a two-front war, neither of which has been going well. Bush's decision to put hundreds of billions of dollars into an Iraq imbroglio while slighting the effort to fight al-Qaida, rebuild Afghanistan, and move Pakistan toward democracy and a rule of law has been shown up as a desperate and unsuccessful gamble. The question is whether President Musharraf now most resembles the shah of Iran in 1978. That is, has his authority among the people collapsed irretrievably?
The article is well written, and quite authoritative, as Professor Cole’s work tends to be. If you’re unfamiliar with the entire history of Pakistan as the wellspring of charismatic Islamic fundamentalism, this would be a good quick primer. But to answer Professor Cole’s question,
The obvious answer is that the Bu$h malAdministration doesn’t do “Plan B’s,” as many will remember from the Iraq Study Group report of earlier this year.
Professor Cole continues:
Pakistan's future is now murky, and to the extent that this nation of 160 million buttresses the eastern flank of American security in the greater Middle East, its fate is profoundly intertwined with America's own. The money for the Sept. 11 attacks was wired to Florida from banks in Pakistan, and al-Qaida used the country for transit to Afghanistan. Instability in Pakistan may well spill over into Afghanistan, as well, endangering the some 26,000 U.S. troops and a similar number of NATO troops in that country. And it is not as if Afghanistan were stable to begin with. If Pakistani politics finds its footing, if a successor to Benazir Bhutto is elected in short order by the PPP and the party can remain united, and if elections are held soon, the crisis could pass.
Several observers have noted that the Bhutto family is the PPP, and apparently there is no nationally known politician waiting in the wings.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a political rival of Ms Bhutto, had returned from exile at the same time as Ms Bhutto, and he had also been the target of an unsuccessful sniper attack yesterday. He was ousted as Prime Minister when General Musharraf staged his coup in 1998. Since he was convicted of terrorism by the Supreme Court and blocked from participating in national politics for 21 years, it would seem he is barred from replacing Ms Bhutto as a candidate for Prime Minister. Since he is technically still under ban, its unlikely he will be able to run in the January elections.
I’ve discussed the operating problems of the M-16 rife and the M-4 carbine in May and August of this year.
The M-16 was designed to fight off the Communist hordes in the Fulda Gap, and didn’t fare well in the hot steamy jungles and paddies of South East Asia. Its smaller carbine model, the M-4, doesn’t function well in the sandpit of South West Asia.
There were design errors with both the M-16 and its ammunition that contributed to the deaths of US troops in Viet Nam and it took the Army time to get up to speed. Eventually they produced a pretty good weapon, even if the DuPont company refused to change its production line to manufacture a powder idealized for the weapon.
The M-4 suffers from several faults apparently, including an inability to prevent heavy sand and dust fouling and a round that is now outdated for combat. More about the 5.56mm round later.
Complaints about stoppage failures with the M-4 got no attention from the Army’s Ordnance Department until the issue got Congressional attention. Tom Coburn, the anti-science republican from Oklahoma, stepped up to the plate on this matter and has been pressuring the Army for an extreme dust test because the dust is an extreme problem. He placed a hold on the approval of Pete Geren as Army Secretary earlier this year until the Army agreed to give it a look.
A new article has details about the test, as well as possible solutions to the problematic M-4, which BG Mark Brown, the Army’s lead procurer, says is “a world-class weapon," adding that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan "have high confidence in that weapon, and that high confidence level is justified, in our view, as a result of all test data and all investigations we have made."
I suppose the high level of confidence is what spurred the complaints to Congress. By the way – we pretend this is a family blog, so no commentary about BG Brown’s position as lead procurer.
After firing 6,000 rounds through ten M4s in a dust chamber at the Army's Aberdeen test center in Maryland this fall, the weapons experienced a total of 863 minor stoppages and 19 that would have required the armorer to fix the problem. Stacked up against the M4 during the side-by-side tests were two other weapons popular with special operations forces, including the Heckler and Koch 416 and the FN USA Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle, or Mk16.
Another carbine involved in the tests that had been rejected by the Army two years ago, the H&K XM8, came out the winner, with a total of 116 minor stoppages and 11 major ones. The Mk16 experienced a total of 226 stoppages, the 416 had 233. [emph added]
So, the weapon that did the very best, H&K’s XM8, is no good. Can you spell NIH*, friends? The M-4 had 863 “minor “ stoppages and 19 failures that would require second-level repair. That’s generally things like a broken firing pin, a separated case during extraction, or a broken ejector.
The Army was quick to point out that even with 863 minor stoppages -- termed "class one" stoppages which require 10 seconds or less to clear and "class two" stoppages which require more than ten seconds to clear -- the M4 functioned well, with over 98 percent of the 60,000 total rounds firing without a problem.
98%!!! Awright…. So does that mean that we’d only lose 2 GIs out of every 100 to weapon failure during sustained firefights?
Excellent…. Well done, Army.
A cynical man would wonder how BG Brown would consider matters if the Army only got his monthly pay right 98% of the time. After all, statistics is just numbers, right General?
So how did those other weapons fare?
[A Congressional] staffer offered a different perspective of how to view the Army's result. If you look at the numbers, he reasoned, the M4's 882 total stoppages averages out to a jam every 68 rounds. There are about 30 rounds per magazine in the M4.
By comparison, the XM8 [NIH] jammed once every 472 rounds, the Mk16 [OK, built here but a Belgian company] every 265 rounds and the 416 every 257 rounds. Army officials contend soldiers rarely fire more than 140 rounds in an engagement.
Let’s watch that 140 rounds figure. It’s important.
By the way, the US Special Ops community thinks so highly of the H&K 416 that they got themselves budgetary approval to purchase 416 upper receiver/barrel units and they graft them unto M-4 lower receivers.
Army officials say the staffer's comparison is "misleading" since the extreme dust test did not represent a typical combat environment and did not include the regular weapons cleaning soldiers typically perform in the field.
So the Army is sticking by the M4 and has recently signed another contract with manufacturer Colt Defense to outfit several more brigade combat teams with the compact weapon. Service officials say feedback from the field on the M4 has been universally positive -- except for some grumbling about the stopping power of its 5.56mm round. And as long as soldiers take the time to clean their weapons properly, even the "extreme" dust testing showed the weapon performed as advertised.
So, as long as GIs stop in the middle of firefights and clean their weapons after 4 magazines, we’re good to go?
There is a lot of grumbling about the 5.56mm round. Its lethality might have been oversold during the Viet Nam era. It’s a potent round, and quite fast, but its small size doesn’t deliver a lot of foot-pounds down range, where you need it. I witnessed people hit at 200 meters with a 5.56mm and, not always, but sometimes, still stand there, banging away with their AKs. Conversely, getting hit with an AK’s heavier 7.62 round puts you down, and that’s the only purpose of using a rifle.
Many end users feel the Ordnance Department needs to get their asses out into the field and actually be forced to use the weaponry they supply to the GIs. The bitter ash-taste of failure is remembered long after the sweetness of a Legion of Honor award is forgotten.
Though Army testers and engineers are still evaluating the data, officials with the Army's Infantry Center based in Fort Benning, Ga., said they planned to issue new requirements for the standard-issue carbine in about 18 months that could include a wholesale replacement of the M4. But the Army has been resistant to replace the M4, which has been in the Army inventory for over 18 years, until there's enough of a performance leap to justify buying a new carbine.
There’s a weapons company in the US named Barrett Rifles. They make that superior sniper rifle chambered in .50 caliber. Snipers love it because you can say “good night” to someone at 4,000 meters. The US military has purchased over 5,000 of these weapons.
They also have designed a new intermediate rifle cartridge, the 6.8mm, which has much more stopping power than the 5.56 currently used.
They designed a new infantry rifle to carry the 6.8 mm round and the M-468 is superior because of the round. It’s basically an M-4 reconfigured for the more powerful cartridge. It’s built to take all the bells and whistles available for the M-4 – the rail system is exactly the same. Because it’s an adapted M-4, you can buy just the upper conversion kit.
Though Army testers and engineers are still evaluating the data, officials with the Army's Infantry Center based in Fort Benning, Ga., said they planned to issue new requirements for the standard-issue carbine in about 18 months that could include a wholesale replacement of the M4. But the Army has been resistant to replace the M4, which has been in the Army inventory for over 18 years, until there's enough of a performance leap to justify buying a new carbine.
Eighteen months. Uh huh.
*NIH – Not Invented Here. The distressing tendency among US military to refuse to consider weapons systems produced in other countries
The V-22 Osprey is in fact operating in Iraq, as has been questioned. The short video clip below is a cut of a longer story about a USN SeaBee battalion searching for water. Water is scarce in Iraq. It seems everywhere you drill for water you end up finding oil.
The cut shows two of these planes landing, which means they do actually fly over there. It takes no special skill to observe the level of sand scour created by the landing.
In related Osprey news, we’ve noted in the past that the V-22 Osprey is remarkably unprotected for a combat assault vehicle.
The machine itself is a big step forward for the Corps and I know we’re all rooting for it to deliver the snuffies somewhere near the crash and clangor of battle – but not too close, since they only carry one .30 machine gun for defensive fire, and the rear ramp has to be lowered to use it. Current plans are to fly near the battle site and unload the troops there and let them march to the sound of the guns, as Napoleon ordered his generals 200 years ago.
Because of this rather depressing lack of defensive fire, the Marines had apparently planned to either escort the Ospreys with their SuperCobra attack helicopters and pound the sand out of the LZ before landing or land some distance away and walk in to the fighting. Ex-Corporal of the Marines Gordon has opined this is the way things are done in the Corps. Having some slight experience in visiting strange lands with hostile inhabitants by helicopter I think you want to get as close as possible to the “point off interest” and start your tourism there. If you land four or five klicks away you have to carry all your extra stuff with you, and you risk encountering some toll booths the unfriendly locals might have set up before you get to where you want to be. If you ask for some new supplies the Ospreys will have to drop them off at a safer distant point and then someone has to walk that ammo resupply in.
Having your resupply near at hand when you need it: priceless. The Marines know all this, because the institutional memory of opposed landings is pretty strong. Marine LTG John G Castellaw was interviewed recently by Stars and Stripes.
WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps’ MV-22 Osprey might be getting more firepower.
The aircraft, which is currently making its combat-zone debut in Iraq, has the ability to hover like a helicopter and fly like a fixed-wing aircraft. It is meant to replace CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, the Corps’ aging workhorse.
Ospreys come equipped with a gun at the ramp in the rear of the aircraft, but they might also get a gun with a 360-degree field of fire, said Marine Lt. Gen. John G. Castellaw.
“One of the options would be to install within what we call the ‘hell-hole’ — but that, that’s where the cargo hook is — a gun in there that would have the ability to shoot 360,” said Castellaw, deputy commandant for programs and resources.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Castellaw said the Osprey has significant advantages over the Sea Knight, most notably its speed and ability to climb rapidly, which means it requires less in the way of defensive systems.
“I told you I’m a -46 pilot; you know, the reason, the main reason I got .50 cals that are on either side (of the CH-46) is when I go into the zone, because I’m so slow and my acceleration rate is just a little bit better than a Volkswagen, then I want something that’s going to keep their heads down until I get enough speed and get away from there,” he said.
I’m pretty sure the “hell-hole” would be on the bottom of the craft. Think of a belly turret on a WWII bomber. However, (just guessing here,) this would be the right place for one of those Common Remotely Operated Weapon Stations (CROWS) stations that are being retrofitted onto US Army HumVees. You can see two photos here, and read the backstory here.
Speaking about speed, and the danger of hostile fire, LTG Castellaw said,
Not only can Ospreys get out of the path of the bullet quicker, but they are also built to take hits, Castellaw said.
I was always under the impression that planes are not built to take hits. I’ve seen helicopters take rounds through the oil cooler and the transmission, at which point they attain the aeronautical stability of a rock. I have the impression that these Ospreys are on the leading edge of flight stability, and I wonder how well they’d handle taking fire. Let’s not find out.
I think with time the Corps will realize that the V-22 is an unhappy compromise. They needed to replace a badly aged transportation fleet and Boeing/Bell has a nifty new experiment they wanted to try. Still, the V-22 has only been in development for 25 years, and the CH-46 helicopter flew for the Marines for 36 years. There’s lots of time to develop operational doctrine as experience improves.
This morning’s USA Today has a nice update piece about MRAPs and the slow de-emphasis on these vehicles as the panacea that would solve all the problems of our occupation of Iraq. The article includes some good photos and a short video clip. The perceived lessening of violence in Baghdad has caused the Army and Marine Corps to cancel some of their orders.
In the past few weeks, the Marines have determined they need fewer MRAPs, and the Army has indicated it will probably follow, mostly because violence is down in Iraq and counterinsurgency efforts are taking hold. Where deployed, MRAPs are helping to tamp down IED attacks by making it safe for troops to move deeper into neighborhoods to find IEDs and the insurgents who plant them, officers in the field say. A USA TODAY team embedded with combat units here in early December found that the news from the Pentagon had not dampened the demand for MRAPs on the front lines.
Troops like these vehicles because they feel safe. Further, they are larger than Humvees and Strykers, with more headroom, which provides a better environment for getting into your battle rattle.
These are the vehicles, by the way, that the Pentagon saw no need to expedite until Secretary Gates had replaced the incompetent and disgraced Donald Rumsfeld.
And, despite the recent notices that overall requirements will be cut — as many as 15,000 were once contemplated — Gates' spokesman Geoff Morrell said last week that MRAPs remain a major priority. "As it stands right now, we continue to buy as many MRAPs as can be produced, and that has not changed."
They are not the perfect answer to the resistance of course.
Although proven lifesavers — only a few troops have been killed riding in MRAPs — the vehicles are not failsafe. Armor-penetrating explosives, called explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, have breached them in Iraq.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, Army deputy chief of staff, says, "Whatever we put a soldier or Marine in, ultimately there is a bigger boom possible, something that can undo that particular design."
No matter how much protection is loaded onto a vehicle, a determined enemy will always find a way to penetrate the armor. I discussed this dynamic at some length back in August.
The real solution is to reduce the threat or remove the challenge that produces the threat. Since we’ve committed the nation’s armed forces to a 40 or 50 year occupation in order to extract Iraq’s oil, we’re probably going to need quite a few of these vehicles in the years to come.
This morning’s WaPo carries an interesting story about a potential shift in emphasis in South Asia. Now that the Defense Department has as Secretary who stands on his hind legs, the uniformed services have found the courage to stand up (ever so slightly) to Mr Bu$h.
With violence on the decline in Iraq but on the upswing in Afghanistan, President Bush is facing new pressure from the U.S. military to accelerate a troop drawdown in Iraq and bulk up force levels in Afghanistan, according to senior U.S. officials.
Administration officials said the White House could start to debate the future of the American military commitment in both Iraq and Afghanistan as early as next month. Some Pentagon officials are urging a further drawdown of forces in Iraq beyond that envisioned by the White House, which is set to reduce the number of combat brigades from 20 to 15 by the end of next summer. At the same time, commanders in Afghanistan are looking for several additional battalions, helicopters and other resources to confront a resurgent Taliban movement.
The withdrawal mentioned is of course the tail end of Generalissmo Field Marshal Kagan’s famous surge escalation, which apparently might have actually had some effect on violence. The constant combatant pressure on insurgency may have caused the resistance to pull in its horns, at least temporarily. This, coupled with the providential “Anbar Awakening” has given the impression that, at long last, all the wishes and hopes of the never-right will come to fruition.
No one seems to have given any thought to the possibility that maybe the resistance is just marking time, until the drawdown begins. Iraq is – or was - a pretty modern nation. They’ve had calendars and newspapers for more than a couple of years, and they understand all about US national elections, and they understand that all this drawdown talk is all about the next election, like everything else the Bu$h malAdministration does.
Bush's decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan could heavily influence his ability to pass on to his successor stable situations in both countries, an objective his advisers describe as one of the president's paramount goals for his final year in office. They say Bush will listen closely to his military commanders on the ground before making any decisions on troops but is unlikely to do anything he believes could jeopardize recent, hard-won security improvements in Iraq.
Administration officials say the White House has become more concerned in recent months about the situation in Afghanistan, where grinding poverty, rampant corruption, poor infrastructure and the growing challenge from the Taliban are hindering U.S. stabilization efforts. Senior administration officials now believe Afghanistan may pose a greater longer-term challenge than Iraq.
The Bu$h malAdministration cares not a whit about grinding poverty, rampant corruption, and poor infrastructure, but the uniformed services do. Helmand Province continues to be a serious problem in Afghanistan. The recent battle for Musa Qala highlights a significant development: the strength of Taliban in the region and the failure of the US Government to prosecute the real war.
The battle of Musa Qala involved more than 8,000 combat troops from the US, NATO and the Afghan Army. This is close to the effective combat power of a full division. It took them the better part of a month to fight their way through a sophisticated defensive belt of mines, booby traps, fortified bunkers, machine gun posts and anti-aircraft gun positions defended by an estimated 2,000 Taliban. The G’s captured Musa Qala in February, and held the town ever since, using it as an expeditionary base, sending units out to other areas in order to distract NATO attention. It was also claimed the town was a drug-smuggling center and this is quite possible, since opium poppy production is reportedly higher than in past years.
Staging raiding and diversion parties from a central point is a classic use of second-level guerrilla forces, and the Western allies were unable to mount a proper offense until late this year, as British forces that had formerly been committed to Iraq became available. There were reports that artillery had been used to break through the defensive belt.
When you have to use artillery you’re not dealing with guerrillas. You’re fighting main force troops. And when you have to concentrate a division’s worth of troops from three countries in order to capture a town held by your enemy for almost a year a wise strategist would re-think his planning.
Since there are a finite number of US troops available to fight Mr Bu$h’s ego-war in Iraq and the real war in Afghanistan, there has been pressure to draw in the forces in Iraq, centering on the jewel in the crown, Baghdad and the Green Zone, and stationing troops in the “enduring bases” rather than actively seeking combat against the resistance in the provinces.
CAMP VICTORY, IRAQ -- In a change of plans, American commanders in Iraq have decided to keep their forces concentrated in Baghdad when the buildup strategy ends next year, removing troops instead from outlying areas of the country.
The change represents the military's first attempt to confront its big challenge in 2008: how to cut the number of troops without sacrificing security.
Actually, the military’s real challenge is how to slow down the decline in Iraq in order to take the violence off the news horizon and enable the Republicans to claim a great victory before the 2008 elections. It’s going to be interesting to see how the ideologues who have risen to influential positions in the Army react to a Democratic President and a Congress with a greater Democratic majority. I know if I were the strategist advising the new President I’d be recommending an immediate cashiering of about 80 or 90 generals and about 100 colonels.
Let’s get some uniforms in there that actually respect democracy and the US Constitution.
A year ago, when U.S. patrols in Baghdad were sparse and sectarian killings were spiraling out of control, President Bush proposed a troop buildup in part to establish order in the capital. Over the last four months, violence in the capital has begun to abate.
But the most significant improvements have been in outlying areas, where the first of about 28,500 additional troops arrived in February, followed by gradual improvements in Baghdad. Military planners at first thought it would be the other way around.
"There was a sense we would focus very significantly on Baghdad and change would come from Baghdad out," said a senior military official in Washington, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing troop strategy. "What we are seeing is just the opposite, it is probably outside-in, toward Baghdad."
Unspoken in this quote is the fact that the outer provinces, especially Anbar, are strongly Sunni. The capital is heavily Shiite. Prime Minister Maliki’s government, while ostensibly a coalition, is primarily Shiite within the ministries.
If we’re banking on change from the outer areas, are we actually expecting a renewal of the civil war?
UPDATE: Bernhard, who's always worth reading, believes the change in strategy presages a planned regime change in Baghdad.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused Friday to give Congress details of the government's investigation into interrogations of terror suspects that were videotaped and destroyed by the CIA. He said doing so could raise questions about whether the inquiry is vulnerable to political pressure.
In letters Friday to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees that oversee the Justice Department, Mukasey also said there is no need right now to appoint a special prosecutor to lead the investigation. The preliminary inquiry currently is being handled by the Justice Department and the CIA's inspector general.
"I am aware of no facts at present to suggest that department attorneys cannot conduct this inquiry in an impartial manner," Mukasey wrote to Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat and Republican, respectively, on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "If I become aware of information that leads me to a different conclusion, I will act on it."
That’s right. The nation’s Top Law Enforcement officer™ who used to teach law at a prestigious law school, and who has spent 18 years on the bench deciding legal matters, has no idea what torture is, even though what constitutes torture is enumerated in the laws of the United States.
I’m not a lawyer. I don’t pretend to be one, but I learned in my first year of college, while studying Constitutional Law, that International Treaties entered into by the United States are laws binding upon the nation, and have the effect of law inside the country. It’s true, you could look it up. It’s in the second paragraph of Article VI.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House approved an intelligence bill Thursday that would prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh interrogation methods.
The 222-199 vote sent the measure to the Senate, which still must act before it can go to President Bush. The White House has threatened a veto.
An awake man would find it fascinating that members of the largest criminal enterprise in the United States today endorse the actions of Heinrich Himmler and Tomoyuki Yamashita.
Down here in the 18th Century we’re having a big legal discussion about whether it’s right to chain up juveniles when they’re brought into court.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks…considers the legality of Palm Beach County's policy of shackling all children brought into juvenile courts on criminal charges.
In a two-hour hearing Friday, Middlebrooks struggled to understand exactly when and why shackles are used and what Public Defender Carey Haughwout would suggest to assure others in the courtroom remain safe if the shackles are removed.
Haughwout, who filed the federal lawsuit in August after her pleas to county juvenile judges and an appeals court failed, said she was prepared to have lawyers testify about how the policy prevents children from getting a fair trial and the psychological trauma it heaps on youngsters, many of whom are poor and have suffered from lifetimes of abuse.
However, rather than discussing – you know – the actual fucking issues, Judge Middlebrooks appears to have been distracted by the issue of whether the process has been properly served.
Instead, the hearing centered mostly on thorny legal issues of whether the lawsuit was filed properly and whether Haughwout has other options - short of federal intervention - that could resolve the issue.
"What federal right are you seeking to impose to take the unusual step of a federal court telling a state court how to act?" Middlebrooks asked.
Haughwout said her office has tried to persuade juvenile court judges that most youngsters aren't a threat, that they don't need to be restrained with leg irons and handcuffs that are secured to a chain around their waists.
Sure. Why would we worry about prejudicing the jury if we can brutalize the kiddies? Those of us who actually have memories that span more than four days remember the last time a Federal court was asked to decide a local matter.
You’ll be surprised to learn that children charged as adults (yes, we do that down here) are treated more humanely.
[T]eens charged with such serious crimes that they are tried as adults are treated more gently. Adults are restrained only with leg irons. That means they can hold documents, write notes to their attorneys, wipe tears from their eyes or blow their noses.
Tears? They actually allow these criminals to cry? Disgraceful!
Charles Fahlbusch, an assistant attorney general who represents the Department of Juvenile Justice, said the configuration of courtrooms makes it easier to control adults. Adult offenders waiting for hearings are seated in jury boxes with sheriff's deputies at each end. There are no jury boxes in juvenile courtrooms, he said.
That’s what we need in juvenile courts! Holding pens.
But, according to America’s foremost expert on the handling of children, chaining them up is the proper solution. On Thursday night, Bill O’Reilly, the 21st century’s answer to Cotton Mather, proclaimed that it is appropriate to chain up children in the basement for 18 months if they dare to send photos of themselves to their friends. Crooks and Liars has the video clip and the money quote.
Bill, steer out of this skid quickly - very quickly! Right now you’re getting worked up over the thought of chaining naked 13 year old girls in the cellar for maybe 18 months. Stop while you still can!”
The image must be more exciting than a wet hard loofah to this pervert.
Carl Hulse writes in this morning’s NY Times that patriotic Americans will once again be disgusted by Democratic Party leaders.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — Congressional leaders are assembling a $500 billion package to try to resolve an impasse by providing President Bush with unfettered money for the Iraq war in exchange for new spending on popular domestic programs.
If acceptable to lawmakers and the White House, the package to be considered in the House as early as Tuesday would avert the threat of a shutdown of federal agencies and end a dispute that has lasted months and pitted Congressional Democrats against Mr. Bush and his Republican allies. [emph added]
The Democrats are at a disadvantage here of course because the republicans did this under Newt Gingrch’s speakership and they got away with it. However, our bought-and-paid-for corporate media will not give Dems the same pass they give to the Fascist Party.
Senior lawmakers and Congressional aides said the broad outlines of the proposal called for the House to consider $30 billion for military operations in Afghanistan, as well as money for military bases and support programs for military families to quiet fears of Pentagon layoffs because of a lack of money.
The Senate would then add up to $40 billion for Iraq combat operations, with the expectation the final war spending total would produce enough Republican support to offset defections by House Democrats.
They expect enough republicans will support what Mr Bu$h wants to offset democratic defections!!! Can you imagine that? They’re planning on defeat. They are conceding the game before it is played.
After the measure returns to the House for a final vote, Democrats opposed to the war are likely to vote against it but may not be able to stop it. The decision to free some money for the war without a deadline or goal for withdrawal would represent a major concession by Democrats. They had earlier said they would not send Mr. Bush any more war money this year unless he accepted a change in Iraq policy.
But Democratic leaders now say they have concluded that a logjam of 11 appropriations bills cannot be broken without acceding to at least some of the president’s demand for more war money.
Mr Hulse’s article speaks with some authority: the Dems will do their face-saving little dance of responsibility before the cameras and then cave as they wring their hands so helplessly, just as they have done oh so many times before to this coward and bully.
Asked publicly on the House floor on Thursday night whether money for Iraq and Afghanistan that was not tied to a withdrawal deadline would be voted on next week, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, replied, “I anticipate at some point in time that will be the case.”
When I grow up and become President I want to be like George W Bu$h. I want to lie every day of the year to American citizens and to the elected leaders of the country. I want to fritter away hundreds of tons of money and thousands of gallons of American blood on a foreign war designed to make me think my penis is the most prolific and most powerful penis in the world. Yes, that’s right – when you’re President it’s all about your ego, screw everyone else in the world.
I want to break laws, just like a real outlaw. Better than that, I want to tell everyone I‘m going to disregard any laws the taxpayers’ representatives may write – just flat out tell them, “This law may require you to follow its requirements, but I am going to act as if the strictures you incorporated in it don’t apply to me.”
I’m going to mock people at every turn, laugh at their illnesses, infirmities and diseases, piss down the pants leg of every news paper stenographer in the country and dare them to complain, and generally act like I’m one hell of a swell fellow. I’m gonna dare them to act like men and say something or try to do something.
I’m going to demand Congress give me whatever money I feel like asking for and will disparage them publicly for having the unmitigated gall to think they’re entitled to a voice in the governance process.
Just vote me the money you gutless little chickensqueezings.
That egomaniacal eight year old war criminal is right to treat them with complete contempt.
Headquarters, Department of the Army, is working with the Department of Defense and other agencies of the USG in planning for an expected pandemic outbreak of influenza, [principally of the avian type.]
What is DOD doing to prepare for Pandemic Influenza? Since the publication of the DOD Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza in August 2006, the Secretary of Defense’s principal responsibility in responding to a pandemic will be to protect U.S. interests at home and abroad. Our pandemic defense will include assisting partner countries to prepare for and detect an outbreak, respond should one occur, and manage the key second-order effects that could lead to an array of challenges.
For more information on national guidance for Pandemic Influenza:
Experienced observers of the Bu$h malAdministration will recognize that the First Tier sources should be checked for timely and accurate information. Second Tier sources will provide upbeat, reassuring information.
UPDATE: Frequent reader Judyo advises that the First Tier sources CDC, HHS, and UDA (all .gov sites) are not to be relied upon for accurate information. Judyo recommends paying attention to the Fluwiki web site.
Simple soul that I am, I presumed the medical professionals in the Bu$h malAdministration could be relied upon. Sigh. Of course I believe in elves and fairies. So what?
