Archive for the ‘World War 4’ Category

NATO: Afghan policeman kills 2 service members

The two were mentoring an Afghan National Civil Order brigade and were shot and killed inside the police compound on Thursday as they sat down to eat lunch, NATO said in a statement. Other soldiers returned fire and the policeman was wounded and hospitalized.

I don’t think you have to be an anti-war hippie liberal to be getting tired of this crap.

Man banging on plane’s cockpit door subdued by passengers, crew

Flight attendants and passengers subdued an unruly passenger and put him in handcuffs as an American Airlines flight was approaching San Francisco, police said.

Sgt. Michael Rodrigues, of San Francisco police, said the passenger was banging on the cockpit door and shouting unintelligibly on Flight 1561 from Chicago when he was wrestled down and put in plastic handcuffs.

There have been a couple of other odd incidents on airlines. Coincidence?

Could the bin Laden Raid Have Revealed a Secret New Helicopter?

Time Magazine:

It seems that the tail rotor visible in the picture belongs to a highly modified version of the H-60, the chopper of choice of the special forces for more than 30 years. Aviation Week doesn’t beat around the bush, claiming: “A previously undisclosed, classified stealth helicopter apparently was part of the U.S. task force that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1.”

Stealth technology on helicopters is not itself new, but the fact that a previously unknown machine was used in this raid is yet another proof of the degree of importance that this mission had for U.S. commanders.

Aviation Week has this:

The exact type of helicopter is unknown but it appears to be a highly modified version of an H-60 Blackhawk. Photos disseminated via the European PressPhoto agency and attributed to an anonymous stringer show that the helicopter’s tail features stealth-configured shapes on the boom and the tail rotor hub fairings, swept stabilizers and a “dishpan” cover over a five-or-six-blade tail rotor. It has a silver-loaded infrared suppression finish similar to that seen on V-22s.

If this was a SEAL-ified Black Hawk or other “secret” stealth chopper, it’s too bad that cat’s out of the bag. But what a mission for the beans to get spilled on!

Murdoc will take it.

Headline: Scattered al-Qaida needs ‘miracle’ to recover

Maybe, but not because of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Unless OBL has been heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of the organization for the past decade while being so far off the radar that fore than a few thought him dead since 2001 or 2002, the actual direct impact here on the al Qaeda organization is going to small.

If they’re “scattered,” it’s because of the past nine and a half years of military, intelligence, and covert operations against them and their allies, not because of this (obviously significant) deletion of an inspirational figurehead.

Someone told me that Oprah tweeted “Does this mean the war’s over?” I hope that’s not true.

To be honest, Murdoc’s a little mystified by the pictures of jubilation in the streets. Are those for real? Are people really running around high-fiving and cheering and dancing over this?

This should be taken like a home run hit in the top of the fifth inning of a close baseball game. Get up and cheer. Then get back to business. It ain’t over, and it might not even be close to over.

What this could afford us is the opportunity to take a long, hard, honest look at what’s going on in Afghanistan/Pakistan and make some decisions about the direction we’re going to head and the goals we’re going to pursue. Murdoc’s been skeptical since Day One that any efforts to nation build in Afghanistan were going to be truly successful and nothing in the past nine years has changed that opinion. In fact, the belief that there is no worthy end point in that desolate pit grows stronger by the week.

We need to keep fighting the war. But perhaps we can shift gears.

UPDATE: Incidentally, I don’t believe Official: Bin Laden buried at sea

Oh, I believe we SAID we buried him at sea. And I understand the desire to not inflame the sensibilities of others further.

But burying him at sea sounds like something from a comic book or James Bond movie. You know, things that have to remain open-ended for the next installment.

We’re going to have to prove he’s dead for at least a couple of generations.

Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan

Killed by US Special Forces in Pakistan, apparently.

We have his body.

Amen.

Afghan pilot shoots, kills 5 Americans

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the gunman was an Afghan military pilot who “opened fire on foreigners after an argument.”

A Taliban spokesman claimed the shooter was someone impersonating a pilot. The Afghan Air Force says he was a 20-year vet.

They could both be right, you know.

A U.S. Soldier, center, with the 101st Airborne Division, returns fire with a M249 light machine gun during combat operations in the valley of Barawala Kalet, Kunar province, Afghanistan March 29, 2011. (DoD photo by Pfc. Cameron Boyd, U.S. Army/Released)

Who’s the guy on the left?

For al-Qaida, Detroit was just the cheapest flight

When an admitted al-Qaida operative planned his itinerary for a Christmas 2009 airline bombing, he considered launching the strike in the skies above Houston or Chicago, The Associated Press has learned. But tickets were too expensive, so he refocused the mission on a cheaper destination: Detroit.

When I’ve said (in conversation) that my family is included in the list of legitimate targets kept by our enemies, I’ve been told that I have nothing to worry about because Murdoc doesn’t live near any real high-profile targets. Well, what if flights into Gerald R Ford International are discounted?

From December: Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md.

A man who recently became a Mennonite tried to blow up a military recruiting station in Maryland.

Hah hah. Just kidding (which you knew):

Antonio Martinez, 21, a U.S. citizen who recently converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Hussain, declared on his Facebook page that he hates “Any 1 who opposes Allah.”

[The] FBI learned of his radical leanings on Facebook, joined his plot and supplied him with a fake car bomb that he tried to detonate, federal officials said.

Also mentioned in the article:

Last month, undercover agents in Oregon helped a man who set out to kill thousands at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony prepare a bomb (which was fake), then arrested him after he tried to detonate it in a crowded public square. In October, federal agents posing as Islamic radicals met with a Northern Virginia man later accused of plotting to bomb Washington area Metro stations.

The guy in Oregon is a Baptist and the Virginia would-be metro bomber is a Catholic Tea Party member.

No they’re not.