The world is burning news. The Islam-a-fication of Europe is well underway.

via The Times of Israel.

Tens of thousands protested in London Saturday afternoon against Israel’s military operations in Gaza, denouncing Israel as a terrorist state and castigating British Prime Minister David Cameron for backing Israel’s right to self-defense against Hamas rocket fire.
Led by speakers on a podium, protesters holding placards and banners chanted pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel slogans.
At one point, a woman on the podium shouted “from the river to the sea” — a call for the elimination of Israel — and protesters responded by yelling “Palestine will be free.”
The crowd also directed shouts of “Shame on you” at Cameron, who publicly backed Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas rocket fire aimed at the Israeli civilian population.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which organized the demonstration, said that since the protest began at 12 p.m. (GMT), tens of thousands of people had gathered, more than the 20,000 anticipated. The demonstration began outside Downing Street and was to march to the Israeli embassy.

First.

Why haven't we seen this type of action in the US?

Simple.

The backlash would be so severe that law enforcement would be castigated for letting the situation flare out of control.  Additionally everyday citizens would respond in a way that would shock the world.

Next.

Why is this flaring in Europe?

Because instead of attempting to integrate these populations into their societies they've instead allowed mini-Muslim states to pop up inside their borders.  Sharia law is allowed and radical Islam is flourishing.

The problem for these protesters is Europe (in my opinion) will soon become tired of these damaging flare ups.  Nazi parties are starting to gain traction and you will see a reaction.  And when Europe decides to go old skool its going to be a sight to behold.

The world is burning news. Ukrainian Border Guards will be driving these vehicles in an active war zone?

Note:  The below pics are via English Russia. Visit them to see more pics and their link to a website that appears to be tracking the war and where they got the pics from.  I can't imagine going into an active war zone in these vehicles. All the MRAPs collecting dust in US motor pools and we can't give them a few?

We invite China to RIMPAC...China says yes, and includes a Spy Ship offshore.

via USNI News.

The ship is a Dongdiao-class auxiliary general intelligence (AGI) ship, one in a class of three PLAN ships designed to gather electronic and communication data from surrounding vessels and aircraft, sources confirmed to USNI News.
China watcher Andrew Erikson said the ship is likely to be one the PLAN’s most experienced, in a late Friday interview with USNI News.
“This AGI is most likely to be the Type 815 Dongdiao-class intelligence collection vessel Beijixing(pennant number 851), home ported in the East Sea Fleet,” Erickson, an associate professor at the Naval War College said.

Ok.  We invite China to RIMPAC and they send a spy ship.  Australia and the doves in the Pentagon that worship at the stone of partnership missions and outreach to China must be proud.  How proud?  Check out this apologist article from Information Dissemination.

This year, China has been invited to RIMPAC for participation. China is sending No. 171 (Haikou), No. 575 (Yueyang), No. 886 (Qingdaohu) and No. 886 (Peace Ark) to the exercise.
I'm sure some others would disagree but I think such participation is great for not only relationship between the 2 countries and lowering naval tension.

The writer knows full well that the Chinese sent a spy ship but glosses over that fact by failing to inform readers of it.

Its sickening.

So China steals our secrets, hacks our government & private corporation computers for information, dumps goods on our markets to kill domestic production, lowers the value of its currency to maintain a trade advantage...and when invited to RIMPAC they send a spy ship.

When are we going to get real with China?

The world is burning news. Hamas is losing the propaganda war.

Israel is winning the propaganda war against Hamas.  Why do I say that?  Check out the above video from Bill Maher.

The mainstream media is trying hard to garner support for the Palestinian cause but they're failing badly.

I believe we're seeing the fallout from the videos put out by ISIS.

When we see Israeli soldiers going into combat against Hamas terrorist, many see them as fighting a group that would have Americans in the cross-hairs if they had a chance.

Strangely though, the Palestinian cause is still a favorite of the liberal and political elite.

The UN Chief has inserted himself in the Israel vs. Hamas conflict but is ignoring the much more dire situations in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine.  I won't even mention the troubles in Africa or the issues in the Pacific.  It appears that even organizations have fallen prey to the "selfie" revolution.  Image is much more important than substance.  The UN trying to solve the Gaza conflict (which happens ever couple of years...Google Israel mowing the grass..) instead of zooming in on world changing fights is just the latest example.

You wanted it? Here it is! Major General Frank McKenzie stating that the USMC can best be used as an expeditionary air force?!

Fast forward to 34:43

Feel the pain doubters.

This is further evidence that Navy Matters Blog...and my own little piece of the internet...are spot on when it comes to an unbalanced Marine Corps.

Reality has to set in. The Air Wing is at war with the Ground side when it comes to the budget.

An air-centric Marine Corps.  I never thought I would see the day, but its here now...and that my friends is blasphemy!

Your weekend study assignment. Landing Craft, Amphibious Assault Vehicles & Ship to Shore Maneuver.

First go here to read Navy Matters take on the current state of Landing Craft, Amphibious Assault Vehicles (generic...not a specific vehicle) and USMC/USN ship to shore maneuver concepts.

Then check out the video below.



Now riddle me this.

What the fuck is the plan?  What the hell is HQMC thinking?  Do they even have any idea of how we're going to do future operations?

Please God!  Let the Senate confirm Dunford and lets get some adults back in charge of the United States Marine Corps.

F-35 News. The Fighter we could have built via Gizmodo.

Read the story here.

Damn.  The X-32 is looking sexier all the time.  I wonder how many Pentagon officials are kicking themselves behind closed doors when they consider the current state of the F-35 and think about what could have been.

US Navy evaluating Brimstone missiles for its fighters?

According to a Naval Recognition story (read it here), the US Navy is evaluating Brimstone for use aboard its fighter jets.

The simple question is why?  They have a full array of weaponry available that would seem to adequately cover the Brimstone mission set.  In an age of austerity why are they doing this?

The world is burning news. Libya. Your next hot spot.

Thanks for the pics Tom!

Have you been focused on Iraq, Syria, Central Africa, Ukraine and Israel?

Well add a new hot spot to your list.

Libya.

Check this out from Yahoo News.

Tripoli (AFP) - Fighting between powerful militias battling for control of Tripoli's airport broke out again on Friday, just hours after they had agreed a truce, an airport official and witnesses said.
The clashes came as the government sought United Nations help to prevent the country from becoming a "failed state".
"The airport was once again today hit by mortar fire which struck the security offices," but caused no casualties, airport security official Al-Jilani Al-Dahech told AFP.
Airport security forces returned fire, he said without giving further details.
Libya's main international airport has been closed since Sunday, with rockets causing damage to aircraft and the main terminal building amid warnings by officials the facility could remain closed for months.
The violence erupted when Islamist gunmen from the city of Misrata attacked anti-Islamist fighters from the city of Zintan who have been controlling the airport for the past three years.
The rival fighters are among several heavily-armed militia groups who hold sway over Libya since they fought in the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
Friday's clashes broke out just hours after the mayor f Tripoli announced that the rival militias had agreed to observe a truce and that control of the airport would be handed over to neutral forces

The worse part of this?

The US govt will be caught unaware...again. We are in a terrible time.  Our government appears to be comfortable lurching from one crises to the next.

Fair displaying weapons captured from the Ukrainian Rebels.

Thanks Mr. T for these pics.

I will never get over how the Eastern Europeans (and we're starting to see it in Western countries too) like to paint their tanks in those gawd awful, bright ass colors.

I digress.

This post mainly is to show the high tech nature of the weapons that the Rebels are using against the Kiev government forces.

Merkava IV with add-on belly armor?

The above is a screen capture from an IDF video and a reader on Tanknet.com noticed the armor plate in front of the Merkava IV.  Is that add-on belly armor?

DWI turned me onto Tanknet and I couldn't be happier.  It's another great resource for those that are into armored fighting vehicles.  Check them out.

STOP comparing the Malaysian shootdown to the Vincennes incident!

First a refresher of the Vincennes incident via Wikipedia...

On 3 July 1988, Vincennes, under the command of Captain Will Rogers III, fired two radar-guided missiles and shot down an Iran Air Airbus A300civilian airliner over Iranian airspace in the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board. According to Captain Rogers, they were being attacked by eight Iranian gun boats. Vincennes was defending itself from this attack when the plane was shot at with two Standard missiles. Crucially, the Vincennes misidentified the Iranian Airbus as an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft. The Iran Air Flight 655 was climbing at the time and its radio transmitter was on the Mode III civilian code rather than on the purely military Mode II, as recorded by the USS Vincennes own shipboard Aegis Combat System.

The above is a quick and dirty.

I highly recommend you read the official Navy history of the incident.  My point?  The USS Vincennes was hookin' and jabbin' against what we would call today a small boat swarm.  Additionally they did not have the luxury of knowing that they would be engaged.  Consider it an ambush at sea.  Lastly, they picked up a radar contact that had an airplane heading there way.

Any reasonable person would assume that the Iranian Air Force was on the way to participate in the naval engagement.

Now fast forward to the events over Ukraine and I am getting a serious dose of anger over the main stream media's attempt to link the incidents.

Want a dose of cold reality?

Only an idiot would fly an airliner over an active war zone where aircraft...high performance aircraft at that...had been shot down.

Additionally one must ask why Malaysia Air Lines would be so stupid.  The only thing I can come up with is to save money.  More specifically to save on fuel costs.

Long story short, all these airliner shoot downs are not the same.  Perhaps you could say that they were all accidental, but one thing is certain.  Whoever did the shoot down in the Ukraine was not operating under the same stresses that Captain Rogers was when he gave the order to fire at the unknown bogey charging at his ship. 

Another "Magach" Missile Tank pic....

Thanks Dwi for the pick!

Note:  In the pic below you can clearly see the missile cannisters inside the tanks turret.  I would love to understand the thinking behind this vehicle!  Somebody tell an IDF spokesperson to drop me a line when he gets a few minutes!

The world is burning news....and now Israel invades...

This just in.

The Israeli's have launched their ground offensive into the Gaza.  The objective?  I haven't the slightest.

The world is burning and the administration doesn't have a clue.

The world is burning news. Airliner shot down in Ukraine.

Read about it here.

If the Russians shot this down...or even the rebels...then shit just got real in Ukraine.

Note:  More people just died in one day in the Ukrainian civil war than have died in the Irsael vs. Hamas conflict (this most recent one).

Note 1:  I wouldn't set foot on a Malaysian Air airliner if you gave me free tickets and filled it with strippers!  That airline is snakebit.

Navy Matters Blog says take the amphibs away from the USMC.

Check this out from NMB...

If the Marines are out of the amphibious assault business then why do they still claim to need 38 large hull amphibious ships? If we’re not doing the big amphibious assaults, logic suggests that we can eliminate many of the amphibious ships. Sure, we’d probably want to retain a handful for lower end operations. Around 18 amphibious ships would allow us to operate two MEUs, one each in the Atlantic and Pacific. A three ship ARG requires nine ships to keep three deployed, hence, the total of 18. Quite a drop from 38 and quite a potential savings!

The Marines can’t have it both ways. If they’re out of the business then they don’t need the assets, resources, and budget. In fact, if they’re dropping down to light aviation-based assault one could legitimately wonder if the Army’s aviation assault capabilities aren’t sufficient and superior.

Read the whole thing here.

My take on things?

I am so tired of Marine leadership speaking out and not realizing the power of their words.

Navy Matters Blog is spot on.  I can't refute a thing that he's said, but I also know this.  We will continue to be in the "combat" and "forcible entry" business.  A few air wingers that don't know a thing about the REAL Marine Corps can't change that.

All this group of leaders has done is throw mud in the face of the Marines they supposedly lead and protect pet projects at the expense of the institution.

NOTE!  Let me be clear.  Navy Matters isn't saying to TAKE away the amphibs but that its a logical next step if we are to believe what General Mullen stated.

Legacy building or attempting to punch out early?

via Yahoo.
It’s highly unusual for a high-ranking soldier, let alone a high-ranking Marine, to publicly questionWhite House and Pentagon policy. Yet that’s exactly what four-star Gen. James Amos, Commandant of the Marine Corps, did yesterday in Washington.

Speaking at the Brookings Institute Tuesday, Amos said the Obama administration paved the wayfor the emergence of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) by completely withdrawing American troops in 2011.

“I have a hard time believing that had we been there, and worked with the government, and worked with parliament, and worked with the minister of defense, the minister of interior, I don't think we'd be in the same shape we're in today,” Amos said.
Amos also blasted the White House for failing to live up to its obligations around the world.
“We may think we're done with all of these nasty, thorny, tacky little things that are going on around the world -- and I'd argue that if you're in that nation, it's not a tacky, little thing for you. We may think we're done with them, but they're not done with us," Amos said.

Uh wow.

He plainly said that the Obama administration's policy in Iraq is wrong.

Is he attempting to burnish his legacy or is he trying to give the White House the reason they need to punch his ticket?

Sidenote:  Dunford's confirmation hearings are going on now.

IDF deploys new "Magach" tank.

Thanks much Dwi for the links!

F-35 News. The "no show at the air show" fallout begins...

Thanks Doug for the pic!

Well that didn't take long.

SAAB was quick on the trigger and I've noticed that they're striking at that big gaping weak spot when it comes to the F-35.  .

Will it actually work?

Sidenote:  A blast from the past when it comes to this airplanes price can be found here.  Bogdan's been on a cost cutting kick from the first day of his tenure.

F-35 News. Let's talk death spiral.

First check this out from NPR...

WERTH: Lieutenant General Bogdan does not fear a death spiral. He says costs have actually dropped over the past four years. And his goal is to get the F-35's price down to around $85 million dollars each. Although, he says any uncertainty does not help that process.
BOGDAN: As people waver, it makes it harder for us to project how much the airplane is going to cost. So what we're really looking for is stability.
WERTH: To get that stability, Bogdan says he's here talking to partner countries about what he calls a block buy, which would allow partner nations to pull their orders and purchase F-35s at a wholesale price.
BOGDAN: My incentive to them is if you commit to buying X number of airplanes over five years, I'm going to give you a discount.
WERTH: At the same time, America's allies may not have a choice in the matter. The F-35 is the only advanced, fifth-generation fighter available to replace aging military fleets. And any alternative could be decades in the making. For NPR News, I'm Christopher Werth in Farnborough, England.

Explain something to me.

The orders from S. Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK and Australia were already baked into the cake.

The orders from the US military are too.

But something funny has happened along the way.

The Netherlands cut its order almost in half.  The UK are buying far fewer than originally planned.  Canada still hasn't made a decision, Singapore hasn't climbed aboard and made a firm buy decision, the Italians are making noise about going even lower than the few they're already buying and no one else seems interested.

Now we have Bogdan talking about block buys of an airplane that hasn't even finished testing.

That doesn't smack of desperation?

This whole thing doesn't have the whiff of a death spiral attached to it?

Why the cost cutting scheme?  Why the block buy scheme?  Why do any of it if the plane is on the proper cost trajectory?

Its simple.  They've crunched the numbers, projected costs and found that unless they get foreign buyers to buy the plane NOW then the future is indeed cloudy.

This "no show" at the UK airshow is a big deal.  A very big deal.  We're seeing the first death gurgle of this program.

I couldn't be happier.