Just watched the opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem.
I thought Trump's speech was bad enough. Want to talk about taking pot shots at former President's? The dude did that but fair enough. He's doing what many haven't in the past haven't. He's fulfilling campaign promises.
So while a bit incendiary I can live with his statement.
Netanyahu though.
Damn!
Dude has to play reverse fireman. Instead of putting out fires dude had to waddle into a simmering situation and take out those 10 gallon jugs of gas and get it raging.
WTF am I talking about?
Palestinians are already rioting and what does he say at the opening? God Bless the US and God Bless Jerusalem...THE UNDIVIDED CAPITAL OF ISRAEL!
You think that might convince them to go home and chill the fuck out? I don't!
Don't get me wrong. I'd bet body parts the Iranians are pushing this rioting we're seeing but still.....he just tossed the media a bone to frame this move as a mistake and as further inflaming the situation between the Palestinians and Israelis.
Monday, May 14, 2018
Major General James Lewis Day was once a BADASS Corporal of Marines!
Citation.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a squad leader serving with the Second Battalion, Twenty-Second Marines, Sixth Marine Division, in sustained combat operations against Japanese forces on Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands from 14 to 17 May 1945. On the first day, Corporal Day rallied his squad and the remnants of another unit and led them to a critical position forward of the front lines of Sugar Loaf Hill. Soon thereafter, they came under an intense mortar and artillery barrage that was quickly followed by a fanatical ground attack of about forty Japanese soldiers. Despite the loss of one-half of his men, Corporal Day remained at the forefront, shouting encouragement, hurling hand grenades, and directing deadly fire thereby repelling the determined enemy. Reinforced by six men, he led his squad in repelling three fierce night attacks but suffered five additional Marines killed and one wounded whom he assisted to safety. Upon hearing nearby calls for corpsman assistance, Corporal Day braved heavy enemy fire to escort four seriously wounded Marines, one at a time, to safety. Corporal Day then manned a light machine gun assisted by a wounded Marine, and halted another frenzied night attack. In this ferocious action, his machine gun was destroyed, and he suffered multiple white phosphorus and fragmentation wounds. Assisted by only one partially effective man, he reorganized his defensive position in time to halt a fifth enemy attack with devastating small arms fire. On three separate occasions, Japanese soldiers closed to within a few feet of his foxhole, but were killed by Corporal Day. During the second day, the enemy conducted numerous unsuccessful swarming attacks against his exposed position. When the attacks momentarily subsided, over 70 enemy dead were counted around his position. On the third day, a wounded and exhausted Corporal Day repulsed the enemy’s final attack and dispatched around 12 of the enemy at close range. Having yielded no ground and with more than 100 enemy dead around his position, Corporal Day preserved the lives of his fellow Marines and made a primal contribution to the success of the Okinawa campaign. By his extraordinary heroism, repeated acts of valor, and quintessential battlefield leadership, Corporal Day inspired the efforts of his outnumbered Marines to defeat a much larger enemy force, reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.Suffering white phosphorus and fragmentation wounds must have been unbelievably painful, but to do all that while killing over 100 enemy troops?
To be relieved in place and have those forces see the ground that you control littered with the bodies of those you vanquished?
Some within feet of his position?
That's beyond epic.
That's legendary!
Modernizing the Marine Rifle Squad (Must Watch!!!!!)
Gotta chew on this some more.
One thing this video tried to highlight but I have a bit of problem accepting is the claim of a boost in firepower of 300%.
We've been locked into the 3 round burst of the M16 series for so long that we forget that back in the not so distant past we had fully automatic 16's along with M60 Machine Guns.
What's my point?
We just went thru a period of time where volume of fire for the Rifle Squad took a hit and increased accuracy was supreme.
But in the grand scheme of things that's just a little quibble. It's nothing. I still can't wrap my head around how a drone operator is suddenly gonna make up for the loss of a dedicated rifleman.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around all the missions that the Expeditionary Rifle Squad is picking up and how that one guy is gonna to fight his squad while engaging in so many other competing missions...locate, close with and destroy the enemy might remain the priority but secondary considerations are popping up.
Oh and one last concern.
That 1000 mile screwdriver. All that extra comm gear is gonna have the big green dick, sipping coffee and watching porn on his computer all over you. There will be no escaping it and he'll have a totally different perspective of things. You know the deal. Move 1 mile to the southwest. Easy? Not when you have to cut your way thru a mile of "wait a minute" vines or slog thru muddy water.
I'll chew on it and get back to you guys. Meanwhile what do you think?
To be honest it looks good but I don't recall hearing much about testing of the concept. All I heard is one week they were looking at it and the next they settled on 12 man. My bet was to go to 15.
Rambling now. I'm out.
South Korea's new 14,500-ton amphibious assault ship....are we building the right ships for amphibious assault?
via Korea Herald.
South Korea's new 14,500-ton amphibious assault ship will make its public debut Monday, boasting improved combat and radar systems using the country's own technology, the state arms agency said.
Defense Minister Song Young-moo plans to host the launch ceremony for the Marado ship at the shipyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Co. in Busan in the afternoon, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.
The minister's wife Koo Ja-jeong is scheduled to cut the rope tethering the vessel with a hand axe in a symbolic tradition for the ceremonial launch of a naval ship.
Named after the nation's southernmost island, it will be the South Korean Navy's second large-scale transport ship after the Dokdo of the same class.
I've always wondered why most of our allies have been able to produce and use "small" amphibs while even our LPD and future LSD are both heavier than their largest offerings.
Does our way of doing business make sense?
We have LHA's that can carry the equivalent of a full MEU's personnel solo.
We have bastardized the LPD's mission to become "aviation centric" and done the same to the upcoming future LSD.
Would it not make more sense to halt the madness and if "aviation centric" is going to be the way forward to have a fleet composed of Big Deck LHA's for the F-35 and every other amphib based on the excellent French Mistral class or even this ship?
Sunday, May 13, 2018
Happy Mother's Day...
If your mother is still with you then give her a big hug and tell her you love her.
If she ain't I feel your pain.
How a protester became a terrorist in Syria...
Hat tip to Bayou Man Blog via The BBC...
[Khaled] told the BBC [that], when the Syrian revolution drew its first breaths in 2011 he was a man of peace, "a bit religious, but not too strict", with a job organising pilgrimages.Story here.
"It was an amazing feeling of freedom mixed with fear of the regime," he says, recalling the first day he joined the anti-government protests.
"We felt that we were doing something to help our country, to bring freedom and to be able to choose a president other than Assad. We were a small group, no more than 25-30 people."
Khaled says no-one thought about taking weapons to the early protests - "we didn't have the courage for that", but the security forces arrested and beat people nonetheless.
One day, it was him they detained.
"They took me from my house to the Criminal Security Department, then to other departments. Political Security, State Security... and then to the Central Prison where I stayed for a month before they released me.
"By the time I entered the Central Prison I couldn't walk, and couldn't sleep because of my backache."
Khaled says his most barbaric abuser was a guard at the Criminal Security Department who forced him to kneel before a picture of President Assad, saying: "Your god will die, and he will not die. God dies, and Assad endures."
"His shift was every other day, and when it came I knew I would be tortured.
"He used to hang me from my arms with chains to the ceiling. He would force me to strip, then put me on 'the flying carpet' and whip my back. He would tell me: 'I hate you, I hate you, I want to you to die. I hope you die at my hands.'
"I left his prison paralysed, and when they moved me to the Central Prison inmates were crying when they saw me. They brought me in on a stretcher.
"I decided that if God saved me I would kill him wherever he goes. Even if he went to Damascus, I would kill him."
When he was freed from prison, Khaled took up arms against the government. He says he "helped" 35 Syrian army soldiers to defect from the 17th Reserve Division, which was stationed in the country's north-east.
Some of them he kidnapped, selling their possessions to make money for guns.
Sometimes, he says, he joined forces with attractive women to lure "notorious individuals who hurt protesters" with offers of marriage. He spared their lives, but forced them to make defection videos so they could never again serve President Assad. For his first hostage, the ransom was set at 15 Kalashnikovs, or their value in cash.
One man received no such mercy: the guard who tormented Khaled.
"I asked people about [the guard] who worked at the Criminal Security Department until I found him. We followed him home, and took him.
"He told me something that I reminded him of later. When I was in prison, he told me: 'If you leave this prison alive and you manage to capture me, do not have mercy on me' - and that's what I did.
"I took him to a farm near the Central Prison which was a liberated area. I cut off his hand with a butcher's knife. I pulled out his tongue and cut it with scissors. And still I wasn't satisfied.
"I killed him when he begged for it. I came for revenge, so I wasn't afraid.
"Despite all the torture methods I used with him, I don't feel regret or sorrow. On the contrary; if he came back to life again right now I would do the same.
"If there had been an authority to complain to, to say he beats and humiliates prisoners, I wouldn't have done this to him. But there was no-one to complain to and no state to stop him."
Khaled had lost his faith in the revolution. His focus became the daily battle for his own survival. And he would soon find an even darker role in Syria's savage conflict - as an assassin for the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
Gotta part company with Bayou Man on his summation of this otherwise excellent post.
He labeled atrocities that he witnessed in S. Africa but didn't cover how those acts led good men to go bad.
I want to pivot back to that specifically.
In particular I want to focus on how economic circumstances can cause good guys to go bad...or at the very least become hardened to the suffering of others.
What do I mean?
Think about the financial crisis that wiped out so many people. Think about those people that worked hard, played by the rules and lost homes, jobs, loved ones etc...
Could it be that those people could be on the same path as the guy above?
Does that explain some of the random acts of violence we see? Some of the strife?
What I do know is that economic circumstances led to the rise of Hitler. The feeling of oppression has led to the rise of violent resistance movements in many countries to INCLUDE S. Africa.
Oppression in any form can and will lead to violence. Until leadership makes moves to deal with underlying conditions then there can be no victory anywhere...at least in the way we now wage war.
You just can't outlast an insurgency, neither can you halfway support it and achieve victory.
Long short?
We're not waging war in Syria. Neither are the Russians. We're simply engaged in attrition warfare without end on a small scale. The guy above went from protester to terrorist and is now simply staying alive by any means necessary. How do you make peace with him? How does he make peace with his doppelganger on the other side? You can't so the fight will continue.
Saturday, May 12, 2018
The memes have ruled the day and the FBI is as jacked as I feared...
Thanks to Nico for the link!
via Guardian.
Rakem Balogun thought he was dreaming when armed agents in tactical gear stormed his apartment. Startled awake by a large crash and officers screaming commands, he soon realized his nightmare was real, and he and his 15-year-old son were forced outside of their Dallas home, wearing only underwear.The full pathetic story of an out of control Federal Law Enforcement Agency is here.
Handcuffed and shaking in the cold wind, Balogun thought a misunderstanding must have led the FBI to his door on 12 December 2017. The father of three said he was shocked to later learn that agents investigating “domestic terrorism” had been monitoring him for years and were arresting him that day in part because of his Facebook posts criticizing police.
“It’s tyranny at its finest,” said Balogun, 34. “I have not been doing anything illegal for them to have surveillance on me. I have not hurt anyone or threatened anyone.”
I can see it clearly now.
The FBI is lost in the woods.
My guess?
It's so fucked up now that it's broken into factions. Hard right on one side, hard left on the other.
I blame Trump, some of his lunatic supporters and quite a few idiots that follow memes instead of using their brains.
I'm talking about some of you people that cheered FUCKING Neo-Nazis marching in Charlotte yet called counter protesters terrorists.
Your fucking grandfathers fought Nazis and in 2018 you're cheering them? Simply amazing.
The President calls a few NFL players bastards yet says that Nazis marching in the streets are fine people.
Simply fucking amazing.
As far as the FBI is concerned? Fuck them forever. They need to tear that agency down and rebuild it from the burned roots. They're so jacked up that it would take devine intervention to straighten them out.
This story has me gobsmacked.
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