February 08, 2010

Telegraph:

Fusilier Martin Williams described shooting the insurgents as a “vendetta” against those who killed his friend Robert Hunt, who was the 200th soldier to die in Afghanistan.

His skills were put to the test when his patrol came under fire after it moved into a compound in an area north of Lashkar Gah in central Helmand last Monday. He took up his position and waited patiently for enemy troops to appear. His victims included two Taliban shot in a ditch at a distance of about 800 yards, including one who was hit in the throat.

“He put his hand out as if asking someone to help but not one came,” the Welshman said. “There was definitely less movement after I dropped them.

“The Taliban are used to machine guns but as soon as you get a sniper on the ground, it puts the fear of God into them.”

Hat Tip: Rambo.

February 03, 2010

Three American soldiers were killed in Pakistan. As usual, Roggio has the best coverage:

Three US soldiers involved in the training of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps were among nine people killed in a roadside bombing near a girls' school in Pakistan's insurgency-infested Northwest Frontier Province.

A massive bomb was detonated by the Taliban as the US soldiers traveled to attend the opening of a girls' school in the village of Koto in Lower Dir, a settled district that borders Swat. Three children, two civilians, and a Frontier Corps official were also killed in the blast, while another 65 people, including many young girls and two US soldiers, were wounded in the attack, Geo News reported. A school was also damaged.

Now, Shachtman has a good synopsis of various under-the-radar screen operations in which US forces are becoming involved -- a role normally thought of as belonging solely to the CIA.

What I object to in his analysis is this:

When are we going to start treating this conflict in Pakistan as a real war — with real oversight and real disclosure about what the hell our people are really doing there. Maybe at one point, this conflict could’ve been swept under the rug as some classified CIA op. But that was billions of dollars and hundreds of Pakistani and American lives ago.

The problem with the view point that our operations in Pakistan should now be subject to public scrutiny is that it rests on three faulty assumptions.

1) That the American people should be told everything that their military does because the military is doing it in their name and because they are footing the bill. Under this assumption the government could do nothing covertly.

It is not this particular mission that is the problem, but its covert nature. The objection is idealistic, but when abstract idealism conflicts with the hard reality of lives on the line -- I choose life.

As did George Wasghington:

The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged--All that remains for me to add is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in Most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue.

If you object to, say, the Intelligence Committee meeting in secret then see my response above.

3) That we aren't treating this is a real war. In fact, we are. And Noah, of all people, should understand that. In fact, not only is it the same war as the one we are fighting in Afghanistan, it is the same theater of operations. Which is why nearly every one now calls this the Af/Pak theater.

In addition to these underlying and erroneous assumptions, is an even bigger objection: that admitting that we have troops on the ground engaged in combat roles would -- literally -- lead to a civil war in Pakistan. As it is, the Pakistani people tolerate -- barely -- the notion that foreign troops are there in a support mission.

And by the Paksitani people here I mean the Punjabi elites who have traded radical tribalism or radical Islam -- the hallmarks of many in Pakistan -- for radical nationalism. The Islamists in Pakistan are allied with or sympathetic to our enemies there. The tribes are unreliable.

It is only the nationalists who have allied themselves with us, and that only reluctantly. And that premised only inasmuch as we are willing to threaten them with oblivion -- something that took them only a year or so to see was completely idle -- and more recently with the Taliban becoming an existential threat to the existence of an Indian-Muslim homeland.

It is this threat alone that keeps a certain number of Pakistani nationalists on our side. But their eagerness for us to help them eradicate their own insurgency is coupled with their need to deny that they need us to survive. To admit that they need us is to admit that the whole experiment of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has always been doomed to failure.

Pakistan's elites may be willing to let us operate on a limited basis in their country, but only on a covert basis and only in a "support" role.

It is a catch-22, ironic, and duplicitous: but calling this a war is the same thing as losing it.

Me, I'm willing to be called two-faced for sake of winning a war.

Those that prefer consistency over victory are misguided.

Besides, consistency is overrated. I believe it was Emerson who said that consistency was the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

UPDATE: It's like Uncle Jimbo and I share a brain.

Via Arutz Sheva

(IsraelNN.com) Israel is putting its scariest military technology on the market, one that can kill a man with sounds waves. Its mild-mannered alter-ego, however, is being used to scare man's feathered friends away from airports.

The Jewish State's military industry now plans to market the cutting-edge “bunker buster” weapons technology in the form of a sonic cannon[...]

The process used in the new "bunker buster" technology, patented as Pulse Detonation Technology (PDT), is much the same as the pulse-detonated fuel-air mixtures used in the Argus “pulse jet” that propelled the “Doodlebug” V-1 cruise missiles used by the Nazis in World War II.

h/t Bubbe

February 02, 2010

The Pakistan Taliban declined today to provide proof that their leader was alive, saying they didn't want to make him vulnerable to spies.

That statement proves this:

They have run out of pre-recorded tapes

In related news, Hakimullahs likely successor, Qari Hussain, also killed in same drone strike

Poor akhis on al mosul, they have been delayed from denying these reports due to maintenance

The story is here at Chris Short's blog.

January 28, 2010

Wretchard makes a very good point:

Just as Pakistani employed the Taliban to do its dirty work, there is the temptation to employ local regimes to do otherwise unpalatable things....But it may be acceptable to let the allied regimes do it. That way the press won’t notice....

[I]t is fairly certain that the dual of Obama’s new “clean” policy will be a secret war conducted by foreign governments. Since America can no longer take custody of prisoners rendition is back on the menu. Since America no longer sends soldiers to fight al-Qaeda directly that task has been outsourced to Yemen, Pakistan and others

It is ironic, is it not, that if the Left had its way and the US were to totally withdraw from Afghanistan that I could predict with near epistemological certainty that alleged abuses and war crimes would rise in our absence rather than decline.

Whenever we fight wars we make mistakes. But what we call mistakes, the vast majority of regimes in the Muslim world calls routine day to day operations.

January 27, 2010

Ha the Taliban were PWNED by a chick in a jet plane!

Daily Mail: A female RAF pilot has revealed how she terrified Taliban fighters by screeching low over their heads in her Tornado fighter jet - a new tactic to avoid killing civilians with stray bombs.

Flight Lieutenant Juliette Fleming, 31, was repeatedly called on to swoop down low over fanatics attacking British and coalition troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

The awesome sound of her GR4 jet roaring overhead at 550mph just 100ft above the ground would deafen the enemy and force them to take cover.

Flt Lt Fleming carried out her sorties during a three-month posting at Kandahar airfield with 31 Squadron, known as The Goldstars.

She said the policy of trying to 'win the hearts and minds' of local people meant that the RAF was dropping as few bombs as possible to avoid killing civilians.

Well not really hate it, you know what I mean.

Hat Tip: WriterMom.

January 08, 2010

Sweet!! Click image for more.

h/t Shadow

December 17, 2009

Sweet...

Via Bill Roggio

A commander in al Qaeda's military organization was among 17 Islamist extremists killed during today's strikes in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan in Pakistan.

Zuhaib al Zahibi, a commander in al Qaeda's Shadow Army, or the Lashkar al Zil, was among seven Arab "foreigners" and nine Taliban fighters killed in one of two airstrikes in the Datta Khel region in North Waziristan, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. Two other Taliban fighters were also killed in an earlier, separate strike in the Datta Khel region.

December 11, 2009

Congrats to the controller of the drone, you hit a biggy!

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official has confirmed the identity of a top Al Qaeda operative killed in Pakistan on Friday.

The U.S. official told Fox News that the operative is Saleh al-Somali, the network's external operations chief for plots outside Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Zawaqueery, al libiliee, and godamn, hope you slpode next.

Bill Roggio chimes in. Read it all as they say.

According to this report his real name is Abdirizaq Abdi Saleh.

December 10, 2009

Noah Shachtman has a lengthy report on how the CIA uses secret bases in an unnamed country in our air war against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Pretty awesome.

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point recently released a stunning report which found that Muslims have accounted for 85 percent of the casualties from al Qaeda attacks between 2004-2008. Even more astounding, during the last two years of the study (2006-2008), the percentage of al Qaeda's Muslim victims skyrocketed to an almost-unbelievable 98 percent.

The report's findings decimate the claims made in 2007 by al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri. More...

December 09, 2009

Via Jammie Wearing Fool

This is some incredible footage of some Blackhawk helicopters inserting and picking up troops in the mountains of Afghanistan. The blur spots on the screen are there to hide the data contained on the heads up display that could give the location away.

Uncle Jimbo has an editorial up at the Washington Times lamenting this. I agree.

Ronin also posted about the Beast of Kandahar when the pic was first released.

December 04, 2009

A new website aimed at helping vets is located here at http://marchofhonor.org/

Fan of the site and thank you. I would like to ask you to consider helping me with some visibility for my project MarchOfHonor.org "A National Day Of Recognition". My father and I created and run it by ourselves out of CT.

I would like to ask you to post a link on Jawa referencing the March
Of Honor and to help us get the word out about this project.

Eric

November 18, 2009

The top 500 most influential Muslims.

It's a veritable who's who of Islamofascism!

It's a PDF uploaded to Google Documents, so if you can't see it, I'll try to find a work around tomorrow. It's a tad late to be trying to download and upload this.

November 14, 2009

Jules Crittendon notes:

Forty-four years ago today, Nov. 14, 1965, 1/7 Cav of the 1st Cavalry Division choppered into LZ X-ray in the Ia Drang Valley in a reconnaissance in force that encountered three regiments of the People’s Army of Vietnam dug in on and around the Chu Pong massif.

What ensued was the first major engagement between U.S. and North Vietnamese regulars, and some of the bloodiest days in American military history; with up to 70 percent battalion-level casualties and some platoons almost entirely wiped out on the single bloodiest day of the Vietnam War, Nov. 17, 1965, when the troopers of 2/7 Cav thought it was over and the enemy was defeated. It wasn’t.

November 02, 2009

Dear President Obama,

Since late this summer General Stanley McChrystal has been asking for more troops for Afghanistan lest we lose the war. Early last month those sentiments were expressed in a formal request for 40,000 additional troops. General Patraeus and Secretary of Defense Gates have publicly endorsed Gen. McChrystal's request.

Since that time you have been considering whether or not to provide those troops and whether or not the use of those troops in a counter-insurgency strategy -- similar to that employed in Iraq -- is wise or not. If press reports are to be believed, then top members of your administration have serious doubts as to whether or not the strategy as outlined by Gen. McChrystal and endorsed by Gen. Patraeus and Sec. Gates will work.

Your inaction on this request speaks volumes and one can only draw one logical inference from it: you do not trust the judgment of Gen. Patraeus, Sec. Gates, or Gen. McChrystal.

If you trusted their expertise, then you would have immediately begun to implement their strategy.

Since it is glaringly obvious that you do not trust the judgment of your top commanders in the field or of your own Sec. of Defense, then why don't you fire them?

If they are so wrong, then they should be fired.

The American people deserve competent military leadership in Afghanistan. The fact that you refuse to heed their advise is prima facie evidence that you think that their advise is bad and that they are incompetent.

Since you obviously think that Gen. Patraeus, Gen. McChrystal, and Sec. Gates are giving questionable advice, they should be fired.

Again, if press reports are to be believed, then Vice President Joe Biden is the source of much of the skepticism over Gen. McChrystal's plan in the White House. Since his opinion carries at least as much weight as your top military commanders, then why not appoint V.P. Biden to command CENTCOM in Gen. Patraeus' place?

I find nothing in the Constitution prohibiting the Vice President of the United States also carrying a military commission. You yourself are Commander in Chief, so why not make Biden your Vice Commander in Chief?

I mean, you must think that Joe Biden is at least as smart as Gen. Patreus when it comes to military strategy. Other wise you would dismiss his arguments as carrying less gravitas and would have already made a decision.

The time for decisive action is now. Fire your top military commanders! Promote Joe Biden!

Failing to do so must mean you are weak, indecisive, or more concerned with public opinion than winning. And saying you are weak, indecisive, or not interested in winning is just crazy talk!

October 21, 2009

Via Long War Journal:

On Oct. 13, a former Guantanamo detainee named Yousef Mohammed al Shihri was killed in a shootout at a checkpoint along the Saudi-Yemeni border. Al Shihri and his accomplices were stopped by Saudi security forces after their suspicious behavior drew attention.

Two of the travelers, including al Shihri, were reportedly dressed as women. Saudi security personnel decided to search the al Qaeda car and its passengers, but al Shihri and the others opened fire. Al Shihri and one other al Qaeda member were killed in the shootout, while a third was arrested. One Saudi security officer was also killed.

October 15, 2009

Man that thing is huge.

A bah!?!?

No a bomb.

October 14, 2009

Dude! And it's financed by the military. Skynet, here we come!

Shachtman thinks this is still years away from reality. And he's right if thinking about military applications.

But I wonder if the strangely phallic like animation trying to explain how a material can go from flacid to rigid through a chemical reaction was intentional or not? Either way, I think Viagara just found it's latest competitor ....

October 09, 2009

CBS reporter Laura Logan via Hot Air.

Skip ahead to 5:35 if you can’t stand waiting and stick with it for three minutes. Simply brutal, especially coming from Logan, who was on the ground over there within two months of 9/11. One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post but which Omri Ceren remembered: Today’s White House nuance about the “real enemy” is practically a direct response to the Taliban’s latest propaganda about what peaceful, law-abiding people they really are.

Everyone seems to know this except one person, Barack Obama.

Open your eyes man!

October 06, 2009

If media reports are to be believed, there are two camps in the White House.

One camp, led by the military, believes that the strategy in Afghanistan should be modeled after Iraq. Large numbers of troops involved in counterinsurgency with a focus on protecting the civilian population, restoring order, and giving "breathing room" for the government to train its own forces.

This model does not recognize that there are major differences between the indigenous Salaafi jihadists of the Taliban and foreign Salaafi jihadists of al Qaeda. It assumes that anarchy breeds extremism and that the vacuum left by a non-functioning government will be filled by the Taliban who will then be in a position to offer al Qaeda safe harbor from which attacks against US interests will be launched.

The other camp, led by VP Biden, wants to follow the Somalia model. Since, unlike Iraq, our strategy in Somalia is not widely known, let me describe it as succinctly as possible.

Several years ago an indigenous Islamist movement, modeled after the Taliban, called The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) took control of Somalia by force. US opposition to the ICU took the form of supporting local tribal militias. When these militias failed to oust the ICU, the US covertly supported an invasion by neighboring Ethiopia.

However, the Ethiopian invasion failed at bringing order to the country. As the Ethiopians withdrew, the armed wing of the ICU, the al Shabaab Youth Mujahideen Movement, became the predominate force in many areas of the country.

The al Shabaab openly supports and receives support from al Qaeda.

The new policy in Somalia was to try to differentiate between more "moderate" members of the Taliban-like ICU and al-Qaeda-like al Shabaab.

Working through third party countries, such as the Sudan, the US backed a new transitional government made up of the former members of the ICU. The same people we were once fighting.

In return for this US support, these ICU leaders have renounced the al Shabaab. The non-functioning government we covertly supports still wishes to impose the kind of sharia law which would cut off the hands of thieves and stone adulterers to death. What they claim is that they will not give safe haven to al Qaeda and are today fighting al Shabaab.

The US keeps a small counter-terror force in nearby Djibouti. From time to time we strike at high value targets in Somalia linked to al Qaeda.

It seems to me that this is the strategy advocated by VP Biden. One of "differentiating" between the Taliban, whom we would no longer be fighting, and focusing on al Qaeda.

But what if the Taliban return to power? This strategy anticipates that if the Afghan government was defeated and the Taliban returned to power, that they could be "turned" from their former allies in al Qaeda. Much the same way that the ICU leadership was "turned" from what was formerly their military wing.

That is how I see the present "conversation" between the military and their counterinsurgency strategy and the VP and NSA Director and their counterterrorism strategy.

But, lest we forget, the Iraq model has worked wonderfully.

And in Somalia? Shabaab grows stronger day by day. In fact, much of the country is under al Shabaab control. And even though the group does not actually have a functioning "government", neither does the ICU. And the group has become strong enough that the FBI and CIA now worry that it will begin to carry out attacks against the US abroad.

The best case scenario for this strategy is that a kind of stalemate develops between the ICU, the various tribally governed areas of Somalia, and al Shabaab.

The best case scenario in Somalia if we continue with our current policies is, in fact, very much like pre-9/11 Afghanistan.

The Taliban ruling in the capital and in much of the South with something that resembles a government. The various anti-Taliban tribal forces united in loose coalition ruling in areas of the North.

The difference in our policy towards Afghanistan now and pre-9/11, I am told, is that we would have at least some troops stationed on the ground and that we would be much more vigorous in prosecuting operations against al Qaeda.

The problem with this line of reasoning, though, is that it assumes a friendly government. If there isn't one?

Let us assume that a more "moderate" Taliban government came to power. One that promised to no longer cooperate with al Qaeda. Would they really be willing to allow US forces to remain in Afghanistan? If you think the answer is yes, you are fooling yourself.

And if you think a small number of counteterror units combined with a large number of UAVs can actually take out the world's largest terrorist network, then you have read too many thrillers not understanding that these are works of fiction.

I'm not sure we need to follow the Iraq strategy in Somalia. Frankly, I'm not sure how to solve the Somalia problem!

However, I am fairly confident that following the Somalia strategy in Afghanistan is a sure path to failure. And failure in the war against violent Islamism is not an option.

October 05, 2009

More interesting than the firefight videos is Michael's commentary from Afghanistan. He's embedded with the Brits.

Via Michael Yon: We landed and British Soldiers from “2 Rifles” swarmed in to help unload cargo. Since I made this photo, at least two British CH-47s have been lost in combat operations, one of which was just north of here.

We need more gear and more forces now. We can outfight these enemies and we can win the war, but at this rate a favorable outcome is difficult to imagine. This war shows signs that it will become more intense than Iraq at its peak. As with my twelve dispatches from 2006 warning that we were losing this war, the warnings over the past couple of years seem to be falling on incredulous ears. We will lose the war unless we get more troops and more gear soon.

Each day you dilly dally around the Taliban and al-Qaeda are taking advantage. Its time you showed some steel in your character Mr. President. Lots of people "like" you, support you and or your domestic agenda.

But can't go on in your job just being "liked". You have to go out and earn respect as well.

Talking and meetings and all that is a nice touch, but if our adversaries see that your are all talk and can't back it up. Talking is as useless as fighting the Afghan war short handed.

Make a call. There is only one right call to make. You turn tail and run now and we'll never be able to "talk to our adversaries". They'll know there's no stick to go with the carrot.

Hat Tip: Hot Air and LGF.

Update: You know, I put the LGF link in there to give credit where credit is due. Then I actually surfed over there and read a bit of Chuck's recent ranting...... I see a large daily dose of Thorazine in Chuck's future.

I think Aaron has it about right. "Volume of threat does not necessarily equal likelihood of attack"

In the same manner a lack of threats does not indicate an attack will not happen.

A lot of al-Qaeda's propaganda is just that. War time psychological propaganda operations designed to a. threaten. b recruit c. appear "more legitimate".

During this time of war between the west and these terrorist groups, we need to treat it as, you know, a war.

So we need to remain vigilant about attacks at all times. Also we need the answer, disrupt and thwart the enemy's propaganda efforts. Which is project that if we really really wanted to we could and should win decisively.

Look if a bunch of geeks at Jawa report can have a modest (yeah I'm modest) yet noticeable impact on the enemies efforts. Just think what a concerted allied propaganda effort coupled with a strong anti-enemy communication effort could do.

I feel these threats of attack could be used to force the "target" to waste funds "preparing" for a ghost attack. I seriously doubt that al-Qaeda is stupid enough to telegraph any impending attack. Well maybe a few of the cyber jihad of losers are.....

Here's to hoping and praying it is just al-Qaeda's habit of blowing off at the mouth again.

September 29, 2009

Congress has quietly approved to fast track the deployment of the BGU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). The Pentagon plans to rush the deployment of 10 BGU-57A/B "bunker buster" bombs by June 2010. The MOP is so enormous that it can only be delivered by a B-52 or a B-2A. In fact, the B-2 bombers will need to be refitted in order to carry two MOPs. More at RoA

September 23, 2009

When Shachtman forwarded this article about Robert Gates, I was a little skeptical. Who still uses the term "military industrial complex"? It's so .... Eisenhower. Or maybe Michael Moore.

But the article is worth the read. It's about how Robert Gates is trying to turn the Pentagon into a war making department, rather than a war planning department. A distinction I have never really thought of before.

The argument is always that the military is busy fighting the last war. But Gates sees this as missing what really goes on inside the Pentagon. The military is busy planning for a future war, rather than busy fighting the current one.

And calling himself the "Secretary of War"? Sheer genius. You do know that the "Department of Defense" was called the "Department of War" up until Truman had to go all silly euphemism on us.

Read it all.

September 21, 2009

Baby, that thing is huge!

Hat Tip: Scott.

September 20, 2009

Via Yahoo:

ISLAMABAD – A feared Taliban commander known for beheading opponents died in custody Sunday from wounds sustained during a fierce firefight with Pakistani security forces last week, the military said.

September 17, 2009

Via Daily News:

Forward Operating Base Shank, Afghanistan - The soldiers in his New York-based combat unit call Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho the "Bullet Magnet."

Camacho - either the luckiest or unluckiest soldier in Afghanistan - is on his second tour here with the Fort Drum-based 10th Mountain Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team.

The reason for the nickname: He's just earned his fifth Purple Heart after being shot in the left knee in a firefight 100 miles south of Kabul, military officials said.

"One of my friends said, 'You're the luckiest unlucky person I know,'" said Camacho, 24, who grew up in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands. "I don't know what to make of it."

Hat Tip: Mike.

Oh and Brandon, be careful dude..

Update: The request for this story came in with comments about Brandon. I'll repost them here with permission.

may be a little bit biased about this but SSG Camacho is the best damned NCO I have ever worked with. He kicked ass as weapons squad leader and then stepped up to be our Platoon Sergeant and eventually Platoon Leader. He was wounded on May 20, 2009 during an R&S patrol along a drainage ditch and a wheat field (I was about 5 meters away when he was hit) and then came back and just kept going. He was hit for the 5th time on a night patrol when our platoon managed to kill a large number of anti-coalition forces. This is a real hero..

September 14, 2009

click for more images

About your message to the American people. See these flags. I bet you never thought that 8 years later every person in the office woulds still be flying their flag.

I disagree with Mr. Obama on almost every matter. But Mr. President sir, so far as the goal of victory over al-Qaeda, The Taliban and their allies, wherever they may be, you have my unending support Mr. Obama.

Now get out there and open up a giant can of whupp ass on em Mr. President.

September 09, 2009

WZ:

Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away....

U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village.

Thanks to Brian.

UPDATE: WWYD? (What Would Yoda Do?):

I don't mean to be glib, but as Yoda said: Do or do not. There is no try. That may be a bit of silly Space Confuscianism but it's a damn good guideline in fighting a war. Our troops deserve a hell of a lot better than dying not to vindicate an important national security goal but merely to provide some politicians with political cover.

Posted by Rusty "Asadullah Alshishani" at 11:43 AM | |