Justifiably Proud

If you earn a Distinguished Flying Cross in an AC-130A, you are officially awesome.  The person driving this van makes it cooler to live here, because they also live here.

A Mistake You Can Only Make Once . . . ?

So North Korea is talking big talk about how they are going to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the US of A.  Excuse me while I tremble in my boots.  Even if they did manage to make a working nuclear bomb (which is not entirely a certainty), and even if they managed to decapitate our entire government by delivering it at the State of the Union address, I am pretty sure our military would know just perzactly whose ass to kick, and they would go about kicking it quite soundly.

On the other hand, if they only managed to get a dirty bomb to damage San Francisco's harbor a little bit, I wonder if the current set of limp wrists in Washington would have the stones to respond with force.

That we even have to ponder this threat makes me think we have been far too lenient with the NorKs to date.  We'll see what (if anything) happens next.  I don't think they'll be able to goad us into a shooting war, but it seems like they might be trying.

Nothing to See Here, Citizen!

Please disregard the military helicopters firing machine guns over downtown Miami (and Houston, and more to come for sure).  They are only training.  They are specifically NOT on a mission to desensitize you to seeing military helicopters firing on people in your city.

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The canopy is armored but the tail rotors are not, and rotor heads probably can't take too many rifle rounds without suffering heavy damage.  A few hundred yards means several feet of bullet drop, and remember your windage.  More effective still would be a mortar round onto the helicopters when they are stationary on the ground.

"Every terrible impliment of the Soldier" includes mortars, but your government does not want you to have them.  Yes, that would be the same government currently in the process of getting you accustomed to being fired-upon by your own troops.  For your own safety, you understand.

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Yes, we have come to the point of hypothetical consideration firing BACK (not first!) at helicopters flown by our own military forces.  Is this the change you were hoping for?

Oh, Good. I Was Just Thinking . . .

You know, I was just thinking the number of men we were losing to a war we refuse to win was starting to dwindle to too small a number, and then comes this . . .

In Mali, the peaceful religion of peace is waging a war against people who just want to live their lives in peace . . . yes folks, the muslims are on the march in Mali.  France likes Mali.  France has recently begun dropping many Euros worth of ordinance on the "rebels", but those pesky terrorists muslims just don't want to give up!  So, since the whole idea of a standing army is to USE it, it is entirely possible that we are going to be joining France in kicking the shit out of MALI now. 

Great.

Speaking of What Well-Run Military Strategerie

The latest twist is:

One of the ex-SEALs that disobeyed orders not to go help at the Consulate in Benghazi died because he was spotted by a mortar crew.  The mortar crew that was shelling the Consulate.  The mortar crew he was actively painting with a laser target designator.  They saw his targeting laser and had time to re-aim and fire on him. 

He will have watched them adjusting their aim to hit him.  He likely saw the round launched that killed him.

Why did he stay?

You don't just shine a laser target designator on bad guys in hope that somebody in the sky might see it.  You light up a target when you KNOW a weapon is up there, ready to rain death on a target - THEN you light them up.  This man was a pro-feshinul fighter and he knew what to do with that designator.  It is nearly certain that he KNEW there was a weapons platform in the air, and that they were ready to rain hot death on the peacefulreligionofpeace mortar crew.  Speculation is that there was either an armed drone overhead, or maybe an AC-130 gun ship. 

That aircraft did not fire its weapons.  Did the same "smart diplomacy" and "a gutsy call" leadership team who ordered the CIA Annex to NOT go help the Consulate, also tell the aircraft to hold its fire?

If so, why?

Fitghting the Good Fight

Iraq was bad.  Iraq was Bush's war.  The just war was Afghanistan because Bin Laden was there.  Now that he's dead there will be no more terrorism and we have pulled all our troops out of Afghanistan.  Oh, wait. . . .

Make that, Secretary of State Clinton tries to get Algeria to help us invade frikken MALI in the global war on not-specifically-islam-or-something. Great.

hat tip: Instapundit

HUGE News, Film at Never

FOX News broke the news: there were THREE separate phone call requests up the chain of command from the CIA Annex about a mile away from the consulate in Benghazi.

The agents heard gunshots and requested to be allowed to go help.  Denied

The agents disobeyed an order to stand down (sit on their hands and listen to the fighting) and went.  They rescued who they could, and brought back a corpse.  They asked for help.  And again.  Denied, and Denied.

We know now that there was a drone flying overhead watching the whole mess unfold, and that it was being watched in the USA at the State department, and probably in the White House Situation Room.  We are being told by the Obama Administration spokesmouths that we didn't have enough information to mount a response.  We are told They didn't get any military assistance moving toward the consulate even though 24 different recipients got e-mailed messages, because "it could take hours" to sort through all the intelligence, before someone might finally stumble across the message of the attack underway.

Then shortly after this news broke today, a caller came on the Rush Limbaugh show ("Doug") and claimed to be the sort of person who used to be in places where this sort of thing could happen.  He said, there were a hundred high-speed low-drag Operators that could all be on the ground with all their gear - killing goblins within 5 hours, probably a few dozen could have been there within a couple of hours.  He said, there is a Protocol.  When a certain type of classified "flash traffic" message is sent and the Ambassador is declared to be In Distress, there is a man on watch at the White House.  He gets this message and hands it to the guy next to him and says

"Get this information to POTUS"

The protocol is very likely to be strictly defined, probably down to the exact verbiage to be used.  The message is required to be handed directly from messenger to messenger, all the way to a man standing beside the President of the United States, within minutes.  There is ZERO chance this communication sat unread in any inbox waiting to be sorted through and found.

President
Obama
KNEW - IMMEDIATELY

And 

Did nothing.

THAT'S why the cover-up.

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If we had a neutral press, he would be forced to resign tomorrow.  If.

News You Can Use . . . If You Can Hear It

In case you forgot due to mass-distraction tactics by the leftist press during this electoral silly season . . .

China and Japan are acting pissy about the islands nearby.  Well, now Taiwan is out with their boats in the water too. 

What's the worst that could happen?!

Eh, Guys, What Are You Doing There?

Egypt is moving troops to the Egypt/Israel border, with tanks, to Rafah which is across from the "Palestinian Controlled" area at the southwest of Israel. Yahoo! sucks as a news agency, so the 10-photo series I found has no story with it, and I gotta go to work. I have no time for searching, but I don't much care for it. Maybe they are fighting off "militants," sure. And maybe some of us remember 1967.

The World Is In Denial

The radio news said The Red Cross has decided that Syria is engaged in a civil war. They have said it is now inappropriate for the government to attack civilian targets. Well let me tell The International Community something:

The Syrian government is fighting the same war the United States government is fighting, on a different front. Egypt and Iran have already lost, along with at least 1/4 of Africa. Our common enemy has one name for the war: Jihad.

This is not a war where one can separate civilians from soldiers, combatants from non-combatants. This is not necessarily a war between two organized foes. This is a cultural war, of Islam versus the rest of the World. How's this for a prediction: by the time The International Community comes to realize that this is fourth-generation warfare, the civilized world will already be at a huge competitive disadvantage.

Our enemy does not wear a uniform on his breast. This uniform is IN the breast. The combatant and the non-combatant ARE the same people. The difference is where they point their guns.

This is not spears
This is not trenches
This is not tanks
This is a guerilla activity. FOURTH generation warfare. This is not your father's war - it is an entirely new paradigm. You will not win until you realize it. You will not win unless you take the INCREDIBLY politically-incorrect step of NAMING your enemy. And you will not win unless you are willing to to horrible things to people without uniforms.

You WILL bomb civilian areas.
You WILL target non-combatants. Intentionally.

Unless the world stands ready to firebomb Hamtramck, Michigan into submission . . . well, I hope you don't mind paying Jizyah.

The Echo Chamber

Sounds like a gunshot in the desert. Read this and be amused for 10 minutes.

Hat tip: Borepatch

I Just Died A Little. You Can Check Out Any Time You Like . . .

It is more than a third of my life ago, and only a couple of years long, but it is part of me. I did not realize how much I still love my squadron, until I found out that it was disestablished four days ago. If I weren't such a stone-hearted bastard I would have cried.

You see the guy in the middle? He's looking up so he won't cry while they hand over the commissioning pennant for his squadron. The dude on the right is as hard as me and he ain't cryin' if somebody stomps his dog. The guy on the left musta ate a pickle or something.


Navy News Service

I walked on that air plane. The classified shit inside, I worked on it. It was awesome.

Navy News Service

I think I will care less when my dad dies. This is f'd up. Sure the planes will fly on and the crew will still be amazing at what they do, on the air and on the ground . . . but they won't be wearing the Sandeman any more.

Now only we can do that, who were part of it in the past. All I can say is it's a good thing I don't have a bottle in the house or I'd be late to work tomorrow.

Peace In Our Time

I walked in to the room where my Darling Wife was watching the idiot box. On screen there was a night-time gun battle between deck mounted heavy machine guns on two boats headed toward each other. Tracers flying both directions, men being shot, and then boats colliding, one exploding.

This is the reality of unfortunate people in other places and other times. I thank God when I remember, we are very blessed to have peace here and now.

Imagine driving to the grocery store and the pavement is chewed up in front of your car by a string of warning shots. Imagine responding to a cell-phone robocall and bringing your rifle to a battle in your neighborhood park. Your neighbor from two doors down ends up dead, riding a the swingset on his belly like a little kid but dripping blood out the exploded top of his head. You're at work and the parking lot blows up. The electricity is cut for hours every day because sappers keep cutting the lines. By jumping on them.

These are some of the possibilities of living in a war zone. Now consider that the worst hassle in your day is that some jerk cut you off and slowed down in front of you on the way to work, and then you had to call IT Buddy when the networked printer told you PC LOAD LETTER.

You people should thank God every day that you don't hear shots fired in anger. It's a blessing, and it's not a guarantee. The USA started in a local war, and there have been several "small" wars here since then. Now, the closest you get to a war is downtown ("gun free") Chicago on a weekend.

So, thanks Jesus.

Madness at Work

NP was flying his S107G around on break time and Guido was trying to shoot it out of the air with an AirZooka. Guido is not exactly the world's greatest sportsman and his hit ratio was pretty low. I got a little frustrated at all the misses I was hearing, and set out to see if I could down the airplane with the air cannon myself. First shot was a miss but a close one. Second shot was a hit, but not too impressive because it was about 1 meter away. Then (after recovering from yet another disastrous crash) NP started flying again and he was going about as fast as his modded S107 could go. I had a wide-missed shot, then realized I needed to lead the bird to hit it in flight. I led it and hit it and the helicoper smashed into a doorjamb and went down, hard. Satisfied, I put the AirZooka on a shelf and went back to work. On my way back to my desk, I said quietly, in a squeaky voice, said "How can you shoot women and children!?" to nobody in particular.

JM asked if I had said what he thought I had said. After I responded in the affirmative, he LOL'd pretty good.

Negotiations: a Sign of Weakness

You can console yourself all you like by saying that Western Civilization is more advanced. When you are dealing with a group which understands only the language of force, negotiations are a potential mistake. There are talks about talks between the Taliban and various national and regional governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and this is possibly not-good.

There are political realities on the ground which must be taken into account, I grant you. But when you start negotiating you acknowledge the superiority of your enemy in a war. The possibility exists that the Tangoes will take it as a sign of impending victory and start getting uppity. Then Afghanistan and Pakistan start to degenerate again and let's all raise our hands if we think the USA will be willing to send another couple hundred thousands of troops over there and sink another trillion dollars into the graveyard of empires.

So: make that TWO costly wars suddenly winding down for political reasons during an election year, with huge potential to undo everything we've worked to achieve on the ground in the war zones. But hey, there's an election to win and those pacifists and bringemhomenow types just won't pander to themselves!

"Absolute Victory"

It's okay Japan, you don't have to offer annual apologies for getting us into World War II. We kicked your face in, and we DID see Absolute Victory, just like Roosevelt said we would.

Quote of the Day: "China apparently is preparing for war. What are we preparing for?" -Laura Ingraham, 07 Dec 2011, the day they told their Navy to prepare for combat.

Setting the Stage for Armageddon?

China has an army that could easily march a few million men into Israel. Israel will (if you read it that way) be the location of a battle that will include so many casualties that blood flows as deep as a horse's bridle for 200 miles.

But China has nothing to do with Israel! Why would China figure into the last battle just before the return of Jesus to Earth? They wouldn't, right? It was always some sort of vague "they'll come from the Kings of the North" type of thing. Until now.

China says they'll protect Iran even if it starts World War Three. Iran, of course, is on Israel's short list of "Nations to attack before they wipe us off the map." WWIII here we come.

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The maths are open for debate(check the comments!). Depending on how you run your made-up numbers, it could be about the right volume of blood to mean everyone left on Earth dying in the same place. That seems . . . perhaps high to me.

Syria? Who Cares, There is Football to be Watched!

For those not paying attention, Syria is still at war with . . . (drumroll) . . . Syria. There is an internal struggle for power, with Asad and his well-connected elite (and the military) on one hand, and everybody that doesn't like him on the other hand. It is still a toss-up at this point, so the smart money is hedging both sides (ahem). If you have no idea what I'm on about, click here for a worthy summary of the mess that is ongoing in Syria.

Israel Grows A Pair?

Alternate headline: Israel suspects Obama is as much their ally as he seems to be

Having shown himself friendly to the current tyrannical regime in the islamic republic of Iran, and cool at best toward our ally Israel, it is entirely possible that Israel is afraid that notifying the USA of an incipient attack would be the same thing as telling Iran directly that the attack is coming. Would YOU trust the current White House information sieve to keep it on the hush for a day or three? For an hour?

So. Israel is reportedly refusing to tell The Obama in advance when they launch the upcoming strike on the peaceful adherents to the religion of peace. Oh, and the radio news says they may go at Iran as soon as before this Christmas. Some say by next summer. At any rate, Israel is apparently getting ready to launch their third pre-emptive strike against a neighbor which is working up the capability to wipe Israel off the face of the planet.

Well it is setting the USA up for a huge, horrible bad call. Fortunately it's an election year and public opinion polling may force President Obama to make the right call and support our friends. It would not be out of character for President Obama to denounce the attack after the fact, and even to go so far as to un-friend Israel. It would be a very bad idea but not very surprising if he refused to allow further arms sales to Israel and cut off foreign aid. If Obama starts talking about taking or allowing military action against Israel, you will know that Very Bad Things are on the way.

Let me make a few very-nearly-unqualified statements: I am for Israel. I am against those nations which are against Israel. I acknowledge Israel has a right to exist as a nation, and the Jews have a right to life. "Now let me be clear:" I support Israel taking pre-emptive military action against nations which seek to destroy him.

Including the USA. God forbid it should come to that.

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In related news, Unexpectedly (surprise!) Iran - and let me tell you I was shocked, shocked to hear this, Iran has been working on a nuclear weapon project. Who knew, right? I mean, they kept insisting that they wanted nuclear power for peaceful electricity generation! What an unforeseen turn of events this is!
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P.S. How is Leon Panetta the Secretary of Defense? SRSLY? There's more retreads in this administration boy, I tell you what!

What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Iraq is lookin' to buy a few more F-16 warplanes. And they're going to be building an islamist government, right next door to Israel. Surely nothing bad will come of this!

President Obama is lookin' to sign a new trans-Pacific free trade zone. He says it will increase US exports and increase jobs. The problem is the same as with all the other so-called free trade zones: it's not FAIR trade when you have FREE trade with someone who can pollute as much as they like and pay employees as little as they like, competing against regulation-bound, minimum-waged USA companies. The exports will be the jobs that are created, as MORE companies try to get maximum value for their production dollars.