Military Motivator - Courage

Posted By Blackfive

US Army E.O.D. message to the Taliban Hotel - Happy New Year!

Posted By Blackfive

U.S. and Afghan forces demolish the so-called Taliban Hotel, a safehouse insurgents used to infiltrate Khost, Afghanistan. An explosive ordnance disposal team assigned to the 707th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, soldiers assigned to the 25th Infantry Division's 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, and Afghan forces partnered to level the safehouse.
U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Stephen J. Otero

Command Sergeant Major Door Gunner

Posted By Blackfive

Serving as door gunner, Command Sgt. Maj. Glen Vela flies to al-Asad, Iraq, Dec. 25, 2009, to visit soldiers assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade detachment conducting operations in Multinational Force West . Vela is the command sergeant major for the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Air Cavalry Brigade. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Travis Zielinski

Operation Homelink and Dell Computer Connect Paratroopers to Families Back home

Posted By Blackfive

A U.S. Army paratrooper in Iraq uses an online video-chat program to talk with his wife and children on Fort Bragg, N.C., Dec. 28, 2009. Operation Homelink, a nonprofit organization working with corporate donors to link families and deployed soldiers, partnered with Dell Computer to donate 75 computers to families of the paratrooper's unit. He is assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade, an advise and assist brigade. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Michael J. MacLeod

TSA: If We Can't Stop Terrorists...

Posted By Laughing_Wolf

BUMPING WITH UPDATES

They can and will go after bloggers who expose incompetence put them up for well-deserved ridicule.  For daring to publish an unclassified and widely distributed (internationally distributed even) directive put out in the wake of the Christmas bombing.  In point of fact, portions of the directive had already been published online (on airline and related web sites) and the steps widely published via Twitter, blogs, and social media. 

More coverage on this story can be found here, here, and the hat-tip here.  One does have to wonder why the TSA was willing to threaten, harass, and terrorize citizens over this?  The general level of incompetence displayed in parts (having to go buy a hard drive to mirror the target drive then failing to successfully use it, instead of having one when you show up and having the skill to use it; lack of knowledge that ICE in a phone stands for In Case of Emergency, a common tactic and one embraced by the government even; etc.) is as astounding as it is unsurprising.  When you read about the Keystone Cops fiasco, do you really feel safer now knowing these are the people in charge of your safety when you fly?

As for why this is getting coverage on a milblog, how do you think large numbers of our troops travel everyday?  And for the trolls, I've complained here and elsewhere about the atrocious state of airline security, and the mistake that is the TSA, for years.  I said at the time Bush was making a mistake, a big one.  I stand by that.  I stand by saying that TSA needs to be abolished, and real security put in place.  Sure as little green apples, the TSA doesn't need to be unionized as the current administration (and certain leaders in Congress) want.  

Ah, the TSA.  If you can't do your job, silence your critics and any who dare help those critics. 

Since I fully expect to be on the no-fly list now, and have a visit from a special agent wanting to sieze my laptop, phone, and more to determine my sources, let me make it easy. 

Mr. Laughing Wolf, 1060 West Addison, Chicago, IL  60613

LW

who wonders if it will be Interpol instead, especially if they truly can do it now without those pesky Constitutional restraints

UPDATE:  On a different serious note, there are a lot of reports and a LOT of chatter right now.  Given that we know they target our holidays, please be careful and mindful tonight.  Situational awareness is crucial right now, and will also help you with the normal scum and idiots that will abound this evening.  Take care, be prepared, and have a safe and happy New Year!   My best to you for the coming year. 

UPDATE II:  Can't stop terrorists, go after bloggers, Army CID plays too.  Mr. Wolf has it right in comments here, this is being done because they think we can't and won't fight back -- they would never go after a "major" traditional publication like this.  Can you really see them going after the NYT or Washington Post this way?  They do this because they are stupid enough to think that blogs are soft targets (and thank you for that term, Dean Ing!) that lack the resources to fight back.  Hmmmm.  How well has going after blogs worked for others? 

UPDATE III:  TSA drops the subpoenas.  Could it be bad publicity played a role? (BTW, if you are interested in aviation security and not reading Annie Jacobsen, you need to be.) Hmmmm.  Let's see.  They've already threatened and intimidated (if this were a mob related case, the word terroristic would no doubt be used here too) a citizen/two citizens into allowing them unfettered access to their computers and communications, and to otherwise pry into areas that they are legally forbidden to go into.  So, while it means that they are not going to do more, what does it matter when they have already raped privacy, sanctity of home (castle doctrine), and the rights of the citizens involved?  And, yes, I use that term knowingly and deliberately. 

Hint to any who have had their computers or other com gear taken TSA/CID/Other:  get new.  You don't know what's been done or added to those devices.  If you think they wouldn't add, just look at what they did to you to get it in the first place.  Bugs, bad porn, you name it -- if it shows up after an incident like this, the so-called investigative agencies should not be given any benefit of doubt.  Yes, I am saying I think them capable and willing to do such.  While I would normally give any LE the benefit of the doubt, the circumstances and actions of LE in these cases negates that.  Turn anything seized over to your lawyer and don't let it back in your home. As Insty has noted, you have already been found guilty of the worst thing in the world -- you made a bureaucrat(s) look bad.  There is little or nothing that such will not do to make you pay for that crime.  I love my country, but I fear the bureaucracy.  So should you.

Charges against Blackwater guards dropped

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

About freakin' time, but a Happy New Year for five guys who never should have been facing charges in the first place.

WASHINGTON – A federal judge dismissed all charges Thursday against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in a crowded Baghdad intersection in 2007.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said Justice Department prosecutors improperly built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity. Urbina said the government's explanations were "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility."

The decision throws out a case steeped in international politics. The September 2007 shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. The Iraqi government wanted the guards to face trial in Iraq and officials there said they would closely watch how the U.S. judicial system handled the case.

This was a political case from the get go, and I firmly believe the only reason these guys faced charges is the we made a deal w/ the Iraqis because they demanded we prosecute before they would sign the security agreement. There were claims that this was a massacre and that there were no shots fired at the convoy. That was always BS and I covered it extensively.

Exclusive- Source confirms convoy was fired on

"Contact, Contact, Contact"- Radio logs from Blackwater shooting

Hey how do you think that one ass clown who pleaded guilty and tried to rat the other guys out is feeling? Buddy is only half a word, jackass.

Tribute to the Fallen

Posted By Blackfive Over at Mike Yon's place, Mike has posted a photo essay of a very interesting and appropriate memorial for fallen soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division's 1-17th Infantry.

One Year in Office - Political Rhetoric's effect on combat

Posted By Blackfive

Must read link of the day:  Greyhawk takes a look a political rhetoric and its effects on the combat teams.

   February, 2009: the newly-sworn in President of the United States - who had run on a pledge to "immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq" by removing "one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months" - got a much needed headline: "Barack Obama diverts 17,000 soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan". It was big news at the time, and - perhaps in part because it made good on campaign rhetoric regarding Afghanistan, too - was wildly popular with Americans. (Sixty-three percent approved.) But it was also a fraud, one of the first of many successful frauds the new administration was able to perpetrate on the American public...

Go check it out.  And there's a follow up as well.

Matt Armstrong on PSYOP for Afghanistan

Posted By Grim

Our friend Matt Armstrong ("Mountainrunner") has a solid piece on the importance of good works to the mission in Afghanistan.  It's about what some of us might call good and evil, really, and letting each one have its honest wages.

It is time to stop accepting the propaganda of our enemies. This is about them not us. But exposing the Taliban and Al Qaeda for what they are – a threat to all societies, rapists of men and women, killers of children, drug users and traffickers, violent criminals, and religious hypocrites – is just part of the solution. Denying ideological and physical sanctuary to our enemy requires military and police operations as well as conscious yet subtle efforts to bolster the morale and hope of the people to foster the development of the physical and functional institutions of society. The people must believe that they, not the Taliban or Al Qaeda (or Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai), own and can shape their own future. This creates the incentive to construct schools, expand commerce, and build on their own culture of lawfulness.

We must understand and undermine the real mechanisms that empower the enemy and take “aggressive actions to win the important battle of perception,” as General Stanley McChrystal wrote in his August assessment. US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke called it an information war. “We are losing that war… We can’t succeed, however you define success, if we cede to people who present themselves as false messengers of a prophet, which is what they do. We need to combat it.” Besides the challenges on the ground, the Taliban’s global propaganda campaign clearly works: according to the CIA the Taliban pulled in $100 million this year in outside donations.

A successful strategy in Afghanistan, and elsewhere, requires assistance directed “against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos” to “permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist” without which “there can be no political stability and no assured peace.” Success is not derived on the dollars spent or the contracts let but how whether locals feel self-empowered, hopeful, and secure.

This is why we questioned COL Roper and BG Cardon closely on the ability of the interagency (and our allies) to follow-through on the "reconstruction" issue -- whether you call it aid or development or Civil Affairs or Civil Military Operations, it's the keystone to American COIN.

We can provide short-term security for the Afghans to try to build that rapport, but we can't build it for them.  They have to do it.  They're going to need a lot of help, and only some of it can be military help.  They will need a lot of technical assistance, which our civil affairs and civil-military operations units can offer; but it can't be just the military.  State's Provincial Reconstruction Teams are important, but it can't be just the State Department.  We're also going to need a lot of money, a very great deal of money, for capital improvements like rail lines and new roads.  Tying the rural Afghan regions to the prosperity that comes from trade is the long-term solution because it gives the people a stake in the peace that they can't afford not to defend. 

Do the right thing.  Our enemy does much that is wicked.  Other than that, the main thing we have to do is develop allies who are good at telling the story.  They will be more credible than we are, because they will have the credibility of a village leader, an elder known to the people.  These are the people we should focus on helping, so that our efforts boost their own, and enhance the reach of their voice.

Juicebox Mafia call to Kill the Filibuster

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Well off topic for here, but a fun scrap underway. The Juicebox Mafia is a bunch of young, liberal pundits so-named by Eli Lake of the Wash Times including Ezra Klein, Spencer Ackerman, Matthew Why-Glesias and today's target Tim Fernholz. I know a couple of them now and have proffered a challenge to debate a number of issues i.e. The Socialization of the America. I have received an acceptance of the gauntlet, and will advise as to a time and place for the inaugural debate between the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy & the Juicebox Mafia.

For the time being here is my opening salvo answering their calls to abolish the filibuster and impose the tyranny of the majority. I have been told to expect a response, Game on.