Archive for the ‘World War 4’ Category

A U.S. Marine with Bravo Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion heads to a Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft after executing a narcotics and weapons raid in the Khash Rod district of Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 14, 2012, in support of Operation Lion's Den. The raid was part of an effort to disrupt the selling and distribution of contraband throughout Afghanistan. (DoD photo by Cpl. Marcus Kuiper, U.S. Marine Corps/Released)

The Marine has what appears to be an M110 SASS.

M110 SASS Sally

Marines fighting the war on drugs.

It’s important to note the anniversary of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and it’s important to give credit where credit is due. But this whole narrative about how President Obama somehow stood out from the pack by ordering the raid and that others, particularly Mitt Romney, would not have done the same mystifies Murdoc.

Osama bin Laden was a bad guy. One of the baddest of the bad. Nearly everyone everywhere agreed. He was held up as the poster boy of what the forces of freedom were fighting against. Regardless of their political persuasion or position on the War on Terror or opinion about regime change in Iraq, all US politicians supported the effort to defeat and capture or kill bin Laden.

When the Taliban was overthrown, opponents of President Bush criticized him for letting Osama bin Laden escape. When the campaign in Iraq was being launched and fought and wound down, opponents of President Bush criticized him for diverting resources from the “real war,” the one in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. When the attempt to build a nation in Afghanistan began to degenerate into the quagmire that it was almost certainly destined to become, the fact that Osama bin Laden was still at large was held up as a symbol of the futility of the war against terror. When terror attacks continued, it was always noted that, while Al Qaeda had been scattered and weakened, they were still a troubling organization and that their spiritual leader was still out there somewhere, lurking in the shadows.

For ten years after 9/11, countless hours had been spent by countless people in countless organizations trying to track down Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. The combined efforts of international military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies had continuously struck out against the number one target in the world.

And when a solid lead was finally found, it was some sort of “gutsy call” for President Obama to order the raid.

As if anyone else would have made a different call.

Media Myth Alert: Why WaPo should reveal sources on bogus Jessica Lynch tale

It’s become common wisdom that the tales of Jessica Lynch’s heroics in Iraq in 2003 were a Pentagon fabrication to hype up support for George Bush’s war.

Except that it wasn’t the military that told the Washington Post the tales.

One of the reporters on the botched story, Vernon Loeb, is on record as saying who the sources were not.

So it should be a small step to saying who they were.

Loeb, in an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” program in December 2003, stated unequivocally:

“Our sources for that story were not Pentagon sources.”

He also said he “could never get anybody from the Pentagon to talk about” the Lynch case.

“They wouldn’t say anything about Jessica Lynch,” Loeb said, adding:

“I just didn’t see the Pentagon trying to create a hero where there was none,” he added. “I mean …they never showed any interest in doing that, to me.”

Loeb also described them as “some really good intelligence sources” in Washington.

It’s probably too late to change the story in the public’s mind. Which was probably the plan.

Also noted in the article is Jon Krakauer spreading the lies in his book Where Men Win Glory. When confronted, Krakauer removed the passage from later editions of the book. Murdoc was unaware of that whole story.

Another Michigan link:
West Michigan Army team goes to Afghanistan to engage other women, and win them over

As a mother, Army Sgt. Andrea Yearsoivich treasures home and family.

And as such, she values the chance to lead female soldiers in Afghanistan with a specialized new role: Win hearts and minds, not by firing weapons, but by breaking down cultural barriers that often impede male troops.

“I think it makes absolute sense. It is an amazing opportunity,” said Yearsoivich, 31. The Grand Rapids resident left last week for Afghanistan with other members of the Wyoming-based Michigan National Guard.

Yearsoivich heads a team of six “female engagement” soldiers, tasked to earn the trust of Afghan women and gain information often off-limits to men.

Good stuff, and proud to see some local guardspersons on this important mission.

Longtime readers may recall a 2006 interview Murdoc had with Jannelle Zalkovsky, a soldier who was on a similar mission in Iraq.

Heh. “Guardspersons.”

Obama’s Surrender of Afghanistan Continues Apace?

So let’s get this straight: we agree to release key Taliban leaders from Gitmo, and the Taliban “reciprocates” not by releasing the one American they hold hostage, but by agreeing to “open a political office…in Qatar?” Wow, what a sacrifice! So basically, what is happening here is that Barack Obama is begging the Taliban to do business with him.

Murdoc’s got some strong issues with what our goals in Afghanistan are, how we’re going to accomplish them, and what a “victory” there would look like. But that doesn’t mean he favors surrender.

Peggy Noonan:

Our movie culture has descended into immaturity, deep and inhuman violence, a pervasive and flattened sexuality. It is an embarrassment.

In Iraq this year I asked an Iraqi military officer doing joint training at an American base what was the big thing he’d come to believe about Americans in the years they’d been there. He thought. “You are a better people than your movies say.” He had judged us by our exports. He had seen the low slag heap of our culture and assumed it was a true expression of who we are.

And so he’d assumed we were disgusting.

Hollywood: Movies by people who hate America most of the time. Except when Americans go to the movies or buy Blu-Rays.

Via Instapundit.

Just Shut Up, Moron….

Fleet of ‘double-V hull’ Strykers growing in Afghanistan

Two hundred of the double-V hulls are now in Afghanistan, with more slated to arrive in coming months, according to Lori Grein, a public affairs officer with the Project Executive Office-Ground Combat Systems. There are almost no flat-bottom Strykers left in Afghanistan, Grein said; most have been replaced by the double-V hulls…

Soldiers who swap the older Strykers for double-V hulls notice few differences.

“Ergonomically speaking they have kept everything the same,” said Wood, 25, of Oakfield, N.Y., who patrols regularly in a double-V hull out of Combat Outpost Talukan in Kandahar province. “All the changes they have made are behind the scenes.”

Insider: $56 Billion Later, Airport Security Is Junk

According to Ben Brandt, a former adviser to Delta, the airlines and the feds should be less concerned with what gels your aunt puts in her carry-on, and more concerned about lax screening for terrorist sympathizers among the airlines’ own work force. They should be worried about terrorists shipping their bombs in air cargo. And they should be worried about terrorists shooting or bombing airports without ever crossing the security gates.