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Some additional thoughts on Pakistan's "emergency" laws. Did the Supreme Court ruling effectively leave Pakistan without a constitutional government when Musharraf's re-election was invalidated? Isn't the possibility that an on-going constitutional crisis in 2001 between Gore and Bush one of the reasons that Gore finally backed down and stopped pressing the problem after the Supremes did not rule in his favor?
China claims that the reason they are looking at aircraft carriers is because their public demands it. Do we buy equipment based on public demand? Probably. That's why defense contractors make a point of putting on nifty shows and releasing them to the media. The public gets interested and it plays a part in pressuring congress and others to approve systems. The only part I didn't buy from the article was that China's military was "balking" at adding it.
I love the "cover up" that wasn't headlines. Headlines like this one: Buried evidence revealed in Guantanamo trial:
The U.S. government has for years had secret evidence that could help a young Canadian prisoner defend himself in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, a military defense lawyer said on Thursday.
After trying for the impression that the government was railroading the guy, they let this one in half way down:
"This is something that was buried because nobody ever looked."
Okay. It was accidentally on purpose. Got it.
History Channel will have an interesting program on tonight: Band of Bloggers. The story of military blogging from the front lines with some appearances by well known bloggers and assisted by JD Johannes from Outside the Wire. Here I thought I had coined the phrase. ;)
-Kat
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This just in - Federal Magistrate says it's okay to stomp on a flag. Wait - before you go, 'D-uh, what's new?" This is a 'man bites dog' story from the boys at Stop The ACLU. -the Armorer
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Be sure to check out Thunder Run. He's got a round up of interesting reports from Iraq. In particular, this one where the people point out a terrorist leader at the police recruitment program. In the past, no one would have said anything and the police would have been infiltrated. The fact they pointed him out in the middle of a recruitment drive tells you that "fear" is losing its power in Iraq.
-Kat
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 (oops, can't call 'em UAVs anymore - they're now Unmanned Aerial Systems... some Colonel got his Legion of Merit for that change...), er, um UAS's 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 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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