Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite. [Hey - trackbacks work again!]
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
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Much has been made about 'Tribes' of late here. So I thought it a good time to haul back out Bill Whittle's classic on the subject.
Remember the question I asked here about Moqtada al-Sadr sending his men to ground? I think we have an answer.
{Update: Media head of the Mahdi Army has been removed from play.--ry }
NSA Wiretapping. The Volokh's have something to say about it.
--ry
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Heh. One of the charities whose board I sit on deals with the issue of foster kids "aging out" of the system. While there is a logic to offering some assistance to this recently-released convicted murderer, I do wonder if raiding the foster system was the place to do it. -the Armorer
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The Pendleton 8 continue to speak out. It would appear that their original pleas of innocence are unfounded, and they are, in fact, guilty of kidnapping and ultimately murdering an innocent Iraqi man. I've written about this before, but the more I found out, the angrier I get at these guys. Although I still don't agree with the way the government handled their arrest and confinement.... it all could have been avoided with an admission of guilt. ~AFSister
[Armorer's note: The way this has been playing out is one reason you haven't seen me saying much about it - other than, "Give them their day in court." I didn't like how it smelled from the beginning.]
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Victor Hanson on the consequences of premature withdrawal, oh, call it what it is, losing, in Iraq, on the Democrats.
All that may, like Vietnam-era street theater, play well to the media. But eventually Iraq, also like Vietnam, will be over — while the protocols and culture of hysteria and derangement, like low-lying marsh gas, will linger and smell. A Henry Jackson or JFK would have had nothing to do with a Michael Moore, who now has entrée with the Democratic elite. If the Republicans were once embarrassed of the Buchanan Right, and the Democrats of the Cindy Sheehan Left, now the Democrats have apparently both of them in their antiwar camp. Good luck…
Then there's this. Powell anyone?
Vietnam and now Iraq will substantiate in greater detail what we tasted in Lebanon and Mogadishu — the impossibility of using large conventional forces in chaotic conflicts that will inevitably turn asymmetrical and terrorist. In that regard, an army on the shelf will fossilize, as we lose confidence that it can ever achieve anything worth its losses. Generals will promise victories in the sort of rare conventional wars they can easily win, and decline the more common messy ones they cannot.
More astounding - 3,000 dead, in a historical context, leads us to this? "...as we lose confidence that it can ever achieve anything worth its losses"
Read the rest here. -the Armorer
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Just in case you weren't paying attention to Ry's post (see PLAAF ASAT) yesterday - THIS IS IMPORTANT. *Especially* given the way the services are looking at network operations and providing digital services. And you have *no* idea of the total impacts of losing enough of the GPS constellation to cause gaps in ground coverage. -the Armorer
{Update: the boys and girls over at Defensetech.org bring up a problem that few seem to be talking about: the debris is a problem and a threat in and of itself. Who needs 'brilliant pebbles'?--ry}
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I know you all read Blackfive, but you have *GOT* to go read "Bagpipes Cryin", and then watch the first video. The second one is good too.. but the first one just gets me. Semper Fi. ~AFSis
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Disgraced former Republican Congressman Ney goes to jail. Good. So, where are we at on Representative Jefferson's day in court? -the Armorer
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to. It's also an open trackback, so if (Don Surber uses it this way a lot) someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
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