Category: Defense

Posted on

Army Wrong

If this inside story of the rot at West Point is accurate, the implications are truly frightening. There’s no good reason to not believe it, given the evidence:

I feel sorry for this punk’s platoon.

No institution is perfect. My alma mater certainly isn’t; many of us Old Corps alums are gravely concerned about declining standards among cadets. 

That’s the way it goes with each passing generation: them kids today got it easy! When we expect perfection, every flaw is magnified all the more. But…

Anyone who cares about the integrity of our armed forces (sadly, not enough of us) has real cause for concern. The warfighters have largely been purged to make way for a new crop of PC wussies who are now field and flag grade officers. That’s how an avowed Communist makes it through a place like West Point. 

The worst part is this guy graduated to assume the sacred duty of leading troops. Which means, as usual, it’s the enlisteds who will suffer the most.

Posted on

Decline of the West

This piece in PJ Media set my blood boiling. Read at your own risk, but here’s the takeaway:

…the Islamic Republic of Iran:

  • Helped design the 9/11 plot
  • Provided intelligence support to identify and train the operatives who carried it out
  • Allowed the future hijackers to evade U.S. and Pakistani surveillance on key trips to Afghanistan — where they received the final order of mission from Osama bin Laden — by escorting them through Iranian borders without passport stamps
  • Evacuated hundreds of top al-Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan to Iran after 9/11 just as U.S. forces launched their offensive
  • Provided safe haven and continued financial support to al-Qaeda cadres for years after 9/11

  • Allowed al-Qaeda to use Iran as an operational base for additional terror attacks, in particular the May 2003 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Iran? Really? Color me unsurprised.

After 9/11, the U.S. declared war on terror and entered Afghanistan and Iraq. But if Bush had really been serious about attacking jihad terror at its root, he would have invaded Saudi Arabia and Iran instead. Under Obama, the denial and willful ignorance have only gotten exponentially worse.

So one President lets them off the hook while the next gives them free license to build nukes. Yeah, this’ll turn out just peachy.

I’m done with these damned fools. Elect whoever you want, I’ll be stocking up on canned food and ammo. If our government won’t defend us, then we’ll just have to be prepared to do it ourselves.

Posted on

There is no “I” in “Team”

But there’s a couple of ’em in IDIOT. Also ISIS. Barack E Neuman

Every time I think nothing more could possibly spew forth from our Narcissist-in-Chief that would shock me, he goes and proves me wrong:

“What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people and to protect the people in the region who are getting killed and to protect our allies and people like France,” Obama said. “I’m too busy for that.”

Emphasis mine. Lunacy his.

“I’m too busy for that.” Let that line sink in. The heat you’re probably feeling is your blood boiling.

It really is a shame that President Lightbringer can’t seem to avoid these pesky interruptions into whatever it is he thinks is his top priority. We all hate how this most recent assault on humanity and Western civilization has inconvenienced you.

Too damn bad. It’s time to nut up and do your job. You wanted to be the leader of the free world? This comes with the territory, cupcake.

Of course he doesn’t see it that way and his mind (such that it is) certainly won’t be changed by the invective of one part-time writer from Ohio. He’s made it clear that he can’t be bothered with any aspect of the Presidency which doesn’t comport with his “transformative” agenda.

What really gives me a case of the red-ass is his dismissive aloofness in the face of  serious threats that he enabled by creating a power vacuum in the Middle East. I have friends and classmates who never came home from that shithole. It would be nice to think they didn’t give their lives in vain, but his actions have ensured otherwise.

History will judge Obama to be the most destructive person to ever hold the Presidency, and the entire civilized world will pay a heavy price. His folly already eclipses Chamberlain’s, as old Neville at least didn’t run around actively working to kneecap his allies while sucking up to Hitler. It will take a couple of generations to repair the damage done, as our allies would be right to question our will.

If only he went after these animals with the same zeal he goes after Republicans. Those of us who watch current events with an eye towards history grow more anxious with each passing week: it feels like we are at the point of maximum danger and are in a race against time as his final term approaches its end.

It’s as if it were 1938 and instead of FDR, Joe Kennedy is in the White House.

 

 

Posted on

Evil Descends

America has not had war – real, society-devastating war – brought to our shores in the modern era. I’m talking large-scale, sweeping invasions. Pearl Harbor, as jarring as it was, is not in Kansas. The Japanese island-hopping campaign into North America never made it past the Aleutian islands. We saved western civilization in WWII but were spared the suffering of Londoners during the Blitz or the despair of the French as they watched Nazi divisions march into Paris. We did not have to endure travails like the siege of Leningrad or the rape of Nanking.

The horror of 9/11 is as close as war has come in our time, and even that was limited in scope. And sadly, for too many of our fellow citizens even that was not enough for them to take our enemies seriously. Our success (thanks to the unfailing devotion of the men and women who work in the shadows against our enemies) has lulled us into a dangerous complacency. Over the last century, our fellow citizens have overwhelmingly remained safe in their homes and travels.

Try to imagine going out for groceries or taking your kids to school or meeting friends for lunch while haunted by the knowledge that at any time, any location, your world could literally explode in your face. Randomly, for the simple offense of your existence. Or that you (or your children) might be kidnapped and dragged through a tunnel into enemy territory to God knows what fate.

Welcome to life in Israel, coming soon to the United States of America. We have essentially abandoned our southern borders so the Democrats can recruit an army of future obedient voters and the Republicans can provide their Chamber of Commerce buddies with an ample supply of cheap labor. In the meantime, the most savage enemies of our civilization have the ability to infiltrate our country in ways they probably couldn’t have dreamed of. So far, it is their only way of projecting power and we’d better be ready for it.

Ironically, our fellow citizens are finally waking up to this threat while our leaders hoped to sweep it under the rug. Thank God there are men like Ted Cruz who get it, perhaps he and the few other clear thinkers in Congress can persuade our Commander in Chief that we can deal with this threat quite readily. The IslamoNazis have finally semi-organized themselves into a stand-up army, a problem which we are really good at dealing with. Out in the open, in the desert. It’s what one might call a “target-rich environment.” But time is not on our side.

This is just begging for an air strike.

This is what happens when we abandon the battlefield. It emboldens our enemies, and now they have the means to bring the fight to us. Whether or not it was a good idea to go there in the first place doesn’t matter: the ugly truth is that once you’re in the fight, you’d damned well better be in it to win it.

As the saying goes: you may not be interested in war, but that doesn’t mean war isn’t interested in you.

Posted on

Mars Attacks!

The UK Telegraph ran a story today about the private efforts to send people to Mars. Nothing really new here for anyone who follows this stuff, but it’s interesting to me that this is being treated seriously by the popular media and not just other space fanboys.

But if we’re going to do stuff with the potential to be suicidally dumb, we’d better get serious about our spacefaring capabilities. Those Star Destroyers aren’t going to build themselves.

Is there intelligent life out there? Beats me. I tend to doubt it, but that’s only because of my Christian faith. It’s not a concept that I take all that seriously, though it wouldn’t be a shock if there’s other life out there – finding microbes on Mars or sea creatures on Europa wouldn’t be any more theologically jarring than finding a new species at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.

Finding sentient life would be an entirely different matter, and I have to admit it would shake me to my foundations if it happened. And I like to think of myself as a fairly open-minded guy: I’ve made peace with the concept of evolution alongside the creation story in Genesis. My God is big enough, and science can’t explain everything. A lot of fellow believers haven’t reconciled themselves with that – too many, in fact, have blown off science entirely because it challenges their belief system and they just don’t want to have to think about it.

Presuming there is intelligence out there, how can we be sure they’d be good neighbors? I never bought into the starry-eyed presumption that the only way a civilization could make it that far was through peaceful coexistence, because anything else would have surely resulted in their annihilation.

Well, isn’t that nice? Think happy thoughts. Happy people. Happy trees. Shiny shiny.

What a load of crap.

Real scientists will no doubt tut-tut my ignorance but it seems to me that if there are other civilizations in the universe, there’s only a few reasons we haven’t heard from them:

1. They’re really that much smarter than us and don’t think we’re ready for it.

2. They’re no smarter than us and haven’t been broadcasting for long enough.

3. They’re smarter than us and know the neighborhood’s not safe, so shut up already before you attract any more attention to yourselves!

The first time I read about hypothesis (3), I was stunned that it hadn’t been advanced earlier: what if everyone who can communicate doesn’t because there’s a really good reason not to? Should we be carrying on like we’re in the ol’ Griswold Vacation Wagon, broadcasting our suburban-honky naivete to all the gang-bangers within earshot? Because if predators count on anything, it’s the prey’s ignorance that they’re being stalked.

Of course, I’m always looking for reasons to stock up on ammo.

 

Posted on

Remember

Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o’er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Dream of battled fields no more.
Days of danger, nights of waking.

-Sir Walter Scott

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”

-Gen. George S. Patton

Posted on

Zero Dork Thirty

In which a gullible civilian reporter gets rolled by the Bin Laden “shooter”.

Last month, Esquire magazine published a long story about the post-SEAL life of the trigger man of the Bin Laden raid. The guy has not had it easy by this account, and now I’m very glad I didn’t rush to link to it when it first came out last month.

And boy, it was tempting. But something just didn’t ring true, not to mention that it’s hard to get too broken up about someone voluntarily giving up their benefits by checking out early. Sixteen years is a serious commitment to a very dangerous job that very few people can do. It’s certainly long enough to understand the ramifications of mustering out just four years shy of retirement. Really, dude?

I just had a really hard time getting my head around that story. Not having been Special Ops, their psyche is beyond my comprehension in just about every way imaginable. Perhaps being a SEAL was so important to him that finishing out his 20 in a different field was out of the question.

Yeah, yeah: everyone’s different. You can’t (and shouldn’t) pass judgment. But as I said, something just didn’t sound right. And sure enough, something wasn’t. SOFREP has done their own background work and describes how this writer got played:

Esquire Is Screwed: Duped by Fake UBL Shooter

One story coming out of Joint Special Operations Command is that the Esquire “shooter” isn’t the shooter after all. To be clear, he wasn’t the point man that put the well placed rounds into UBL’s head that ended the terrorist leaders life. Sure he was there, and deserves credit but he wasn’t the man who shot UBL, and ended his life. And this is an important fact that must be clarified.

The actual shooter at Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSW DEVGRU or SEAL TEAM 6) has continued to maintain his professional integrity and has not come forward with the story, and most likely never will. Looks like Esquire and Bronstein are the ones who are really screwed, not their interviewee; our sources say he’s off cashing large checks from unsuspecting donors who bought the Esquire pity piece.

Lots more at the link. Between the two dueling accounts, it’s quite a story…so who to believe? Everyone has their own agenda, but my money’s on the former Operators at SOFREP and their professional connections.
Posted on

Can You Keep A Secret?

When is a secret spaceplane not a secret spaceplane? When we know about it ahead of time:

Next month, the X-37B will blast off again aboard an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The exact timing of the October launch is unknown and subject to change due to weather conditions, and there’s no telling how long the drone will stay in orbit. ”Preparations for launch at Cape Canaveral have begun,” Major Tracy Bunko, an Air Force spokesperson, told Space.com.

It’s funny how the sci/tech blogs get all twitterpated over this thing. X-37 was a NASA program that got money-whacked (like pretty much every other NASA project), and the Air Force wisely took it over. It fit the bill for a lot of capabilities they’d been wanting to develop anyway, so it’s not like they’ve reverse-engineered the Klingon cloaking device or something.

Which would probably be a bad thing, since they stole it from the Romulans to begin with. We’d be much better off just building our own cloaking device from scratch…

Where was I?

Posted on

“RID THE WORLD OF THOSE SAVAGES”

Perhaps the most succinct instruction that anyone could give our military. If only it had come as marching orders from the CinC instead of a eulogy from the widow of a fallen SEAL:

“It is easy to write a book about being a Navy SEAL, but it is very hard to write an obituary for one.”

“To all the Operators here today I give you this charge: Rid the world of those savages.  I’ll say it again, RID THE WORLD OF THOSE SAVAGES!”

(H/T: Ace of Spades)

Now if you will allow me a little self-indulgence…

I was an active-duty Marine for six years. Nothing special, but I did my job and am proud of that service. Between that and the military college I graduated from, the martial virtues have left a lasting impact on my life.

Parris Island was no treat, but the additional training Spec Ops guys endure almost defies comprehension. The one trait they share that has always impressed me is their quiet confidence and humility. They carry a respect for their own abilities and those of their comrades, and don’t feel a need to show off.

If only more of us in less hazardous professions were like that. God bless the men and women who don’t hesitate to run towards the sound of gunfire.

Website Powered by WordPress.com.