Ok if you haven't seen Whale Rider all I can say is that it's a very nice movie. I liked it a lot. So to hear that [url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,110012,00.html]Keisha Castle-Hughes [/url] was nominated for best actress is pretty cool. Already I've seen the critics whining about how young she is an if she deserves the nomination. Well screw them. She did a good job and I'm glad she got a nod.
Ok I'm going to try something a little different tonight. The topic is ask me anything. So submit you questions via the comments and I'll do my best to answer.
If I get no questions I'll just yell and scream and basically have a fit.
This was a response to a comment I made on one of these wacko sites.
[i]Reply to: jbrookins No, its the poor dumb slobs in the US Military dying or maimed to enrich the corrupt despicable Bush regime & Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, FOR OIL-- WHO ARE IN PAIN OR DEAD. It's the poor innocent civilians SLAUGHTERED & MASSACRE IN ORDER FOR DUBYA, CHENEY, RICE, HALLIBURTON ET AL. TO BE ABLE TO CRAP ON GOLD TOILET SEATS. You might want to go fight & die in Iraq, Pakistan whereever-- Opppsss -- I suspect like most drunken AWOL arm-chair chicken-hawks like Dubya: YOU WON'T!!!![/i]
I’ve been looking at some blogs with, lets say counter views and I find the hatered and bile is amazing. Most of these sites can’t state any point of view without first referring to bush or a member of the administration as “neo-con” and “neo-fascist”. I don’t think they even know what the definition of either is.
Their arguments are based on pure a hatred of a man not the facts of any situation.
Hey, I didn’t like Clinton but I didn’t want him hurt, just want some policies changed. These guys worry me because they spout the same garbage coming out of places like Move-on.org and foreign lands of misery.
Well here are a couple of my favorite lefties to check on. Warning they are not coherent but can make for some laughs or scare the hell out of you.
BTW if you post a comment at their sites and it directly refutes their ideas they usually delete your comment.
Are the US Intelligence agencies failing us? Well if David Kay is to be believed they are and badly. But then this isn’t really news. For years we have turned away from Human intelligence and relied extensively on others means to gather information. Technology has been seen as the new wave of intelligence gathering. It reminds me of the Air Force claiming wars can be won with air power alone.
We have over time run the operators off and replaced them with politicians, people of dubious ethics who take no solid positions. Even if David Kay turns out to be wrong, it won’t change the fact that the intelligence community missed the ball on Iraq, Afghanistan and not to mention the late Soviet Union. But then it’s hard to see what’s really happening behind closed doors and through computer screens.
All this while tactical intelligence is getting better. The troops walking the beat and not the analyst in the Embassies are providing the real scoops. Boots on the ground information is reliable but who listens to grunts and enlisted men. The few OGA’s in country doing the job seem to continually find themselves overruled and left hanging. SF teams have been all but ignored many times.
As you can see I’m not a real fan of the intelligence community. I don’t think you can tell the intentions of people by filling out a matrix. Sometimes you need to look them in the eyes..…
Intelligence may have helped get us into Iraq but it is not the reason we are there. I was never a believer in using WMD as a main reason for going into Iraq anyway. Not because I doubted the intelligence but because it was irrelevant to me. The fact that Saddam failed to comply with 17 UN resolutions was enough for me.
then again I was also one who believed we screwed the pooch years ago in not finishing the job in the Gulf War by eliminating Saddam then. UN mandates or not!!!
Well as you can tell I haven't blogged much lately. I had to work again this weekend. It was a long week and I was pretty burnt out today, the only day I have off. So, tomorrow I'll be back at work. I will try to get a post in sometime soon.
A lot has hit the news lately and I want to digest it a little before I make a comment.
Here is the [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com...][b]link. [/b][/url] Lt. Gen. Helmly says some pretty straight forward things in this article. That is a good thing.
I will have more on retention in the future but for now check this out.
Some quotes:
[i]Helmly said the reserve force bureaucracy bungled the mobilization of soldiers for the war in Iraq, and gave them a "pipe dream" instead of honest information about how long they might have to remain there. [/i]
[i]In a recent memo, Helmly said, he told his subordinates that he was "really tired of going to see our reserve soldiers [and finding] they're short such simple things as goggles. It's about damn time you listen to your lawyers less and your conscience more. That will probably get me in trouble. But I told them, I want this stuff fixed." [/i]
Ok I'm probably not going to write a lot about this. It's not my forte, but I will say that I loved this part.
[i]Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This particular criticism is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq. As we debate at home, we must never ignore the vital contributions of our international partners, or dismiss their sacrifices. From the beginning, America has sought international support for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we have gained much support. There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations, and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.[/i]
Ok, I just read this [url=http://weeklystandard.com/Con...][b]article[/b][/url] [url=http://instapundit.com/][b]( Beret tip to Glenn Reynolds)[/b][/url] Everything I know from over 15 yrs of military experience (10 in Special Forces) tells me this is right on the money. Now, I'm not privy to Delta or SEAL team 6s' ops but I know for a fact that many SF operations were stalled before ever getting off the ground.
In the 90's we lost a lot of guys due largely to the fact we weren't doing the missions we signed on to do. Humanitarian Assistance became the buzzword. Not combat.
With the recent successes in Afghanistan and Iraq I hope this is changing. So far with Rumsfeld, Schoomaker and a few others at the top I have felt better. But I know you don’t get to the top by being controversial. So we’ll see….
Any others in Spec Ops got a different opinon let me know. I may have missed something here.
One of the side effects of the War on Terror and Iraq is the experience gained by US ground forces. While it’s never been a debate on US training, we have continually heard how inexperienced they are. With so many Active, Reserve and Guard troops deploying in theater, we will have at the end of this war one of the best-trained and experienced armies in the world.
Unlike past wars where we “downsize” and try to make the military irrelevant I hope this time we use the lessons to build an even better force. [url=http://www.army.mil/leaders/c...] [b]General Schoomakers’ words [/b][/url] (this link has an interesting question and answer sections)to this point are very encouraging.
I find if funny that after every major conflict we find those that are surprised at how well our military performs. They seem amazed that our forces are professional at the same time devastating. (Knock, knock, anybody in there) Well if they would have talked to our military members and watched our training instead of listening to left wing peace freaks maybe they would have known we are not a third rate organization.
There will always be military pundits telling us how our forces will be embarrassed by some foreign fighters somewhere, but they don’t live in reality as much as a world where they continually hope US efforts will fail. Their criticism is more in the line of negative propaganda. Luckily our forces don’t listen to this bunk.
[url=http://www.dw-world.de/englis...,3367,1441_A_1091603_1_A, 00.html][b]German Accused of Using Bodies of Executed in Exhibits[/b][/url]
So this guy takes human bodies and puts them on display as art? What is going on in Germany? With the canibal case going on now somethings smells bad in the fatherland.
The kicker is I like Germany. Damn their not making it easy though!
[b][url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,108611,00.html]Israel has announced that the top Hamas leader is number one on their list to be eliminated. [/url] [/b]
The game the Palestinians have been playing for years needs to be ended. The time for negotiations ended years ago. If there is any chance for peace the complete elimination of all terrorist organizations residing within the Palestinian areas must take place.
Diplomacy has only given us many years and many deaths that could have been avoided. While I believe in talking things out it’s obvious that many Palestinian leaders have no desire to end this conflict at all. Israel has given in numerous times all to no avail.
Israel may need their own deck of cards with the top terrorist leaders themselves.
Ok, sorry everyone but my new position has me running in circles at the moment. I have some ideas for some future post but you’ll have to be patient. I spend much of my time now reading regulations, not a fun thing. I would certainly rather be shooting. Oh well. This doesn’t mean I won’t post, just might not be as in depth as I would like.
Looks like former Treasury Secretary [u][url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,108167,00.html][b]Paul O'Neill [/b][/url][/u] may have to answer for some of the information he has disclosed lately and not just from the White House. He may have removed classified documents and displayed them or information from them on 60 minutes.
I've only read the media reports on O’Neill’s new book on the Bush administration but from what I see so far it's more BS than information.
Apparently she said some pretty stupid things in her column. I guess it didn't occur to her that makin fun of paying clients probably isn't a good career move. Dumbass...
Well I’ve taken a couple of days to digest the story of the Iraqi allegedly thrown in the [b][url=http://healingiraq.blogspot.c...]river to die[/url] [/b]. First of if it is true than many will fall due to the unbelievable number of regulations, policies and orders that would have been broken for this to happen. So, do I think this account of the incident is accurate? Nope!
Look, it’s possible for someone to get scared and fire into a crowd. It’s possible for someone to get mad and kill quickly without thinking of the consequences.
To do what is alleged would be highly unlikely. The time taken, the distance traveled and the state of the soldiers seem like a story for future terrorist indoctrination.
Investigate? Sure but lets not waste too much time if we find no corroborating evidence.
Guess what boys and girls we are at war. This article implies that the Army can’t manage its forces. Well maybe if we hadn’t drawn down so much in the 90’s it would be such a problem. But you know what? When we are at war stop loss will come and go as needed. It’s part of the deal. Now if the young troops don’t understand this maybe their NCO’s better educate them.
Hell I’ve known guys from Vietnam that were involuntarily extended (stop loss).
We don’t have a draft so we don’t have an endless supply of people and must manage what we have. Stop loss as much as it sucks works.
This is spin people, and it’s not as bad as it’s reported.
Oh yeah and there is good news in the report although it’s not really presented that way. But you can now reenlist while your deployed and get you bonus tax-free. We weren’t afforded that nicety while I was deployed. (At least not that I knew of)
Well I read the Washington Post article on [b][url=Military split on use of special forces]Military split on use of special forces[/url][/b] I found the artcle listed at [b][url=http://www.jenmartinez.com/mt...]Jen Martinez's site[/url] [/b]
I Posted the following on her comments page:
This article is right on the money. The restrictions placed on SF in Afghanistan after the initial Taliban rout was crazy. It felt like working with your hands tied.
I wrote much more on this initially but after a little reflection I believe the article states the issues pretty well. Besides I get irritated thinking about what could have been.
Ok, [url=http://www.denbeste.nu/]USS clueless [/url] pretty much writes what I'm thinking on the Egyptian plane crash this weekend. Its way too quick to say it's not terror. That doesn't mean it is but damn should they investigate before stating unequivocally? But then it's the Egyptians and the French.
Looks like an agreement was reached regarding the Afghan constitution. This could be a very big step in securing this country. Hope it continues down this path.
[b][url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,107291,00.html]Afghanistan:[/url] [/b]One of the many aspects of the mainstream media that frustrates me is their lack of perspective. In most of the reports coming from Afghanistan there is a constant reference to the lack of agreement and rivalries. Did the reporters believe that the many ethnic groups who have often fought each other would sit down and easily decide on a constitution?
Afghanistan has literacy rate of approximately 36%, over seven different ethnic groups, three primary languages and 30 minor languages. With just these differences it would be a challenge. Add to that list over twenty years of war. It is amazing that the major leaders are talking at all.
How long did it take the framers of the US Constitution to draft that great document? It took about five months from the time of the first Constitutional Convention to the final Draft, but it took over 11 years from the time the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution written. So can we really expect a nation as poor, literate and fraught with so many power struggles to come up with a lasting document as important as this one without a bit of arguing? No we can’t but you won’t see that written much in the mainstream media.
This is also the same type of reporting going on in Iraq.
So British and American agents seize a [url=http://www.dw-world.de/englis...,3367,1432_A_1075724_1_A, 00.html][b]German[/b] Freighter [/url] full a nuclear bomb making material headed for Lybia. Two months later Lybia decides to confess to a nuclear program and plans to dismantle the whole thing. Now do you think that the fact Gadhafi was caught red handed had anything to do with this and do you think the fact we just deposed one leader in the area made him just too nervous to continue? This is the interesting part. [i]“With the investigation continuing, U.S. officials have refused to state who sold the centrifuges or where they originated from”.[/i] Hummm…
