Category: Military

Another Day, Another Army Sex Scandal………

No Comments

A brigadier general in charge of Army Training Center and Fort Jackson:

The Army announced it has suspended the commander of Fort Jackson, S.C., amid misconduct allegations that include adultery and a physical altercation, according to a spokesman for Training and Doctrine Command.

Brig. Gen. Bryan T. Roberts was suspended today as commander of the Army Training Center and Fort Jackson by TRADOC commander Gen. Robert W. Cone, based on a preliminary investigation by Army Criminal Investigation Command. The investigation pointed to a breach of good order and discipline, “which was contrary to Army values and could not be condoned,” said spokesman Harvey Perritt.

This is not a problem that can be handled internally.

Explain to me again why we need to keep sexual offenses prosecution in the military chain of command under the UCMJ?

The Only People Having a Worse Week than the Obama Administration

No Comments

The Pentagon.

Where they have yet another soldier in charge of a sexual assault prevention office accused of sexual assault, and this time, we have an super-sized the accusations of rape with an accusation of pimping!

An Army sergeant who served as a sexual assault prevention and response coordinator at Fort Hood, Tex., is under investigation for allegations of pandering, abusive sexual contact, assault and maltreatment of subordinates, Pentagon officials said late Tuesday.

………

The noncommissioned officer under investigation had been working as an “equal opportunity adviser and sexual harassment/assault response and prevention program coordinator” with a battalion of troops — about 2,000 soldiers — assigned to the Army’s III Corps at Fort Hood when the allegations surfaced, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The suspect was not identified by name. One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because no charges have been filed, said the portion of the inquiry related to pandering refers to allegations that the soldier was involved in managing a prostitution operation, perhaps involving a subordinate.

Un-dirty-word believable.

I’m beginning to think the whole  “Convening Authority” structure of military justice, where the commanding officer has unlimited authority to decide whether or not to file charges, and can over the ruling of a court martial, needs to be rethought, and not just for cases of sexual assault.

Not The Onion

No Comments

The head of the US Airforce’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Branch has been arrested on sexual assault charges:

A key point in last year’s Academy Award nominated documentary “The Invisible War” was that the military was structurally incapable of adequately policing sexual assault in the armed services. As if to bolster the filmmakers’ case, the Air Force officer in charge of its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Branch has been arrested and charged with sexual battery.

“The DoD estimates that, on average, there are more than 50 sexual assaults involving military personnel each day. The only thing unusual about this particular assault is that the accused was actually arrested and charged, and that senior officers in his chain of command cannot intervene to prevent his prosecution,” Kirby Dick, the director of “The Invisible War,” told CQ Roll Call. His film’s key tenet is that the military does not follow standard criminal justice procedures in sexual assault cases, keeping them within the chain of command, and that this has helped lead to an epidemic of sexual assault in the armed forces.

Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski was arrested by Arlington County, Va., police on Sunday in a Crystal City, Va., parking lot, as first reported by ARLnow. According to the police report “a drunken male subject approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks. The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police.” Krusinski was arrested, charged and held on a $5,000 unsecured bond.

I am not particularly surprised.

The US military has long history of (at best) indifference to issues of sexual assault, as evidenced by the recent spate of get out of jail free cards issued by senior officers.

Bradley Manning Speaks

No Comments

Somehow or other, the Freedom of the Press Foundation managed to get a tape of Bradley Manning’s statement to the court:

The court-martial proceeding of Bradley Manning has, rather ironically, been shrouded in extreme secrecy, often exceeding even that which prevails at Guantanamo military commissions. This secrecy prompted the Center for Constitutional Rights to commence formal legal action on behalf of several journalists and activists, including myself, to compel greater transparency. One particularly oppressive rule governing the Manning trial has barred not only all video or audio recordings of the proceedings, but also any photographs being taken of Manning or even transcripts made of what is said in court. Combined with the prohibition on all press interviews with him, this extraordinary secrecy regime has meant that, in the two-and-a-half years since his arrest, the world has been prevented, literally, from hearing Manning’s voice. That changes today.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), the group I recently helped found and on whose board I sit, has received a full, unedited audio recording of the one-hour statement Manning made in court two weeks ago, and this morning has published that recording in full.

The full audio:

Glenn Greenwald (link) is correct.  The level of paranoia and secrecy is truly bizarre, and when juxtaposed with his pretrial torture (really, that’s what it was), the intent is clear, to create a precedent which criminalizes much of what constitutes investigative journalism.

This Should Get Interesting………

No Comments

President Obama has nominated General Michelle Johnson as superintendent of the Air Force Academy:

The president of the United States nominated Maj. Gen. Michelle Johnson for the appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and for assignment to serve as Air Force Academy’s 19th superintendent.

If confirmed by the Senate, Johnson would become the first woman to hold the position.

Currently serving as NATO’s deputy chief of staff for operations and intelligence, Johnson is a 1981 distinguished graduate from the Academy where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in operations research. She was the first female cadet wing commander and the first female Rhodes Scholar from the Academy.

There have been a lot of problems with Air Force Academy with regard to religious intolerance, even by the standards of an increasingly Evangelical officer corps in the US Military more generally.

Given that it’s located in the “Evangelical Mecca” of Colorado Springs, it’s the home of Focus on the Family, this is not surprising.

I’m wondering how the institution is going to handle a woman in charge, particularly when she has been appointed by the bogeyman of the religious right. 

Just When You Thought that the JSF Could Not Get Any More f%$#ed………

No Comments

We now find out that they bought into Lithium Ion batteries for the fighter, the technology that has grounded the 787:

The Pentagon said it plans to continue using lithium-ion batteries on the new F-35 fighter jet despite problems with similar batteries that have grounded Boeing Co’s new 787 airliner and are causing Airbus to rethink their use on its A350 jet.

Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon’s $396 billion F-35 program office, said on Tuesday that the lithium-ion batteries used on the new radar-evading fighter were made by different manufacturers than those used on the 787, and the jet’s battery systems had been rigorously tested.

“The bottom line is the lithium-ion batteries used on the F-35s have been through extensive tests and have redundant systems to protect the aircraft and battery compartments; they are considered safe,” DellaVedova said.

DellaVedova said there had been some irregularities with the lithium-ion batteries not starting properly in cold temperatures that were being addressed, but no issues affecting flight safety had come up during years of testing.

All 50 Boeing Dreamliners in commercial service were grounded worldwide on January 16 after a series of battery-related incidents, including a fire on board a parked 787 at Boston’s Logan International Airport and an in-flight problem on another airplane in Japan.

The groundings have cost airlines tens of millions of dollars, with no solution yet in sight, and have sparked growing concerns among aerospace industry executives about whether the powerful but delicate backup energy systems are technically “mature”, or predictable.

Why am I not surprised?

When you cross reference “advance technology”, “unproven”, and “risky”, the Venn diagram of the intersection is the JSF.

Un-Dirtyword Believable

No Comments

OK, I get the fact that the military needs for some sort of citation for excellence in playing video games operating drones, but the idea that such a citation would outrank a bronze star, which is awarded for personal courage on the battlefield, is beyond stupid:

The Pentagon is creating a new high-level military medal that will recognize drone pilots and, in a controversial twist, giving it added clout by placing it above some traditional combat valor medals in the military’s “order of precedence.”

The Distinguished Warfare Medal will be awarded to pilots of unmanned aircraft, offensive cyber war experts or others who are directly involved in combat operations but who are not physically in theater and facing the physical risks that warfare historically entails.

The new medal will rank just below the Distinguished Flying Cross. It will have precedence over — and be worn on a uniform above — the Bronze Star with Valor device, a medal awarded to troops for specific heroic acts performed under fire in combat.

………

The new medal will be awarded for specific acts, such as the successful targeting of a particular individual at a critical time.

“Our military reserves its highest decorations obviously for those who display gallantry and valor in actions when their lives are on the line and we will continue to do so,” Panetta said.

This is screamingly stupid.

It speaks to a culture in the Pentagon that sees itself as an officer corps that increasingly resembles strutting peacocks.

Why I Call Him the Worst Constitutional Law Professor Ever.

No Comments

Just in case your wondering how bad Obama’s assertions of the right to kill anyone, at any time, are, note that not only are they dubious constitutionally, they directly conflict with the black letter text of the Magna Carta, meaning that he’s not just ignoring 230 years of law, he’s ignoring 798 years of law:

Two provisions of Magna Carta deserve our attention today, a gift to us from the Barons of 13th century England.

38. No bailiff for the future shall, upon his own unsupported complaint, put anyone to his “law”, without credible witnesses brought for this purposes. {This was replaced by improved legislation in 1863}

39. No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised {deprived of land} or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. {This remains in force for the people of England, but no longer in the USA}

Our ancestors spent much blood, sweat, and tears between that day at Runnymede and the meeting in 1878 at Philadelphia. The liberties provided by the Constitution were won over those 30 generations, by the unruly Saxons and Normans of Medieval England — and the Founders, jealous of their liberties and willing to fight for them. In the decade since 9-11 we’ve thoughtlessly thrown away political structures that took centuries to build.

This country in general, and the Obama administration in general, is going in a profoundly wrong directions.

Facepalm

No Comments

Yes, considering the disaster that was the Israeli rump state in Lebanon, the idea that Israel is planning to establish a “buffer zone” in Syria does not bode well:

ISRAEL is considering creating a buffer zone reaching up to 10 miles inside Syria to protect itself from fundamentalist rebels on the other side of the border.

 The proposal, which has been drawn up by the military and presented to Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, is intended to secure the 47-mile border against a growing Islamist threat if President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime loses control of the area.

 The buffer would be modelled on the Lebanese security zone, in which the Israeli defence forces patrolled jointly with the South Lebanon army, a militia, up to 16 miles inside Lebanon from 1985 to 2000.

Yeah, and that whole Lebanese buffer zone worked so f%$#ing well.  derf

This is insanity.

This is Called Circling the Drain

No Comments

The Army has decided to delay its Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) program:

Army acquisition leaders moved Jan. 16 to delay its top modernization program, the Ground Combat Vehicle, in hopes of making it more viable in the face of expected defense budget cuts.

The Army issued a memorandum Jan. 16 announcing the addition of a six-month extension of the Technology Development phase of the GCV Infantry Fighting Vehicle program. Defense companies will have more time to “refine vehicle designs,” according to an Army statement.

They have been playing around with all sorts of whiz bang technology, the weight has ballooned to that of an M-1 tank, and there have been repeated delays and cancellations. (Background here)

This is a clusterf%$#, and it will continue to be a clusterf%$#, and the best case will be an over priced, under performing, Byzantinely complex and hard to support system.

Your Military Video Pr0n

No Comments

Here is a video from Saab for the Gripen.

It’s a little bit fantastical, but at least it has a narrative, as opposed a to pr0n movie metal soundtrack.

I think that the Gripen really has the possibility to be this generation’s F-5, small, cheap, and ubiquitous, though it is operating at a political handicap, because it is not made by, or going to be fielded by, the nations that are the biggest players diplomatically or militarily.

H/tThe DEW Line

When You Don’t Meet Performance Targets………

No Comments

The Department of Defense lowers the target:

The US Department of Defense is lowering the performance bar for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter according to a new report by the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E).

The specifications for all three variants pertaining to transonic acceleration and sustained turn rates have been reduced. Worst hit in terms of acceleration is the US Navy’s F-35C carrier-based model.

“The program announced an intention to change performance specifications for the F-35C, reducing turn performance from 5.1 to 5.0 sustained g’s and increasing the time for acceleration from 0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach by at least 43 seconds,” reads the report prepared by J Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s DOT&E. “These changes were due to the results of air vehicle performance and flying qualities evaluations.”

The US Air Force F-35A’s time has slipped by eight seconds while the US Marine Corps short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B’s time has slipped by 16 seconds. However, turn rates for both the A and B models have been impacted more severely than the USN variant. Sustained turning performance for the F-35B is being reduced from 5G to 4.5G while the F-35A sinks from 5.3G to 4.6G according to the report.

They also have issues with the horizontal tails getting too hot and delaminating, buffet/wing drop issues, and the they still do not have the helmet mounted display working properly.

And let’s not get started on the software.

This continues to be a clusterf%$#, but with hundreds of billions already invested already, no one is willing to bite the bullet and walk away.

They will continue to throw good money after bad.

What it Means to be an Occupying Power

No Comments

Full disclosure, I have not read the book in question, but this review of Kill Anything that Moves, by Nick Turse gives a remarkable picture of our experience in Vietnam:

Now, in Kill Anything that Moves, Nick Turse has for the first time put together a comprehensive picture, written with mastery and dignity, of what American forces actually were doing in Vietnam. The findings disclose an almost unspeakable truth.

Meticulously piecing together newly released classified information, court-martial records, Pentagon reports, and first-hand interviews in Vietnam and the United States, as well as contemporaneous press accounts and secondary literature, Turse discovers that episodes of devastation, murder, massacre, rape, and torture once considered isolated atrocities were in fact the norm, adding up to a continuous stream of atrocity, unfolding, year after year, throughout that country.

This is the reality of war, and this is the reality of occupation and counter-insurgency.

For all those people who wonder about what will happen when when our military leaves Afghanistan, and our mercenaries leave Iraq, the first question is whether our presence helps them in the first place, and the burden of proof must be on those who support occupation.

Why Are We Supplying Arms to Bahrain?

No Comments

If anything, the crackdown on dissent in Bahrain is worse than in Syria, because of the overtones of ethnic cleansing against the Shia (At least the Syrians oppress everyone equally), and we are arming them:

Despite Bahrain’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the U.S. has continued to provide weapons and maintenance to the small Mideast nation.

Defense Department documents released to ProPublica give the fullest picture yet of the arms sales: The list includes ammunition, combat vehicle parts, communications equipment, Blackhawk helicopters, and an unidentified missile system. (Read the documents.)

The documents, which were provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and cover a yearlong period ending in February 2012, still leave many questions unanswered. It’s not clear whether in each case the arms listed have been delivered. And some entries that only cite the names of weapons may in fact refer to maintenance or spare parts.

For all the evil that the rulers in Syria have done, they have not arrested doctors for treating protestors that came into their emergency rooms, and they haven’t demolished mosques of other sects, as the the Al Khalifa monarchy has done in Bahrain.

Both regimes should be replaced by something that better serves the needs of their citizens, but we are letting the House of Saud dictate our priorities, and surprisingly, they oppose a secular regime run largely by non-Sunnis, and they support a Sunni monarchy like themselves.

The real problem here is that the Arab monarchies will eventually fall, either violently in the manner of the Romanoffs of Russia, or peacefully, in the manner of the House of Windsor in the UK, and the more that we prop them up, the bigger the backlash when they fall.

Iran’s transition from US ally to foe, which derived directly from our unqualified support of a despot, would not suit our interests, nor the interests of the people in that part of the world.

My rule of thumb here is that if the House of Saud is for it, I’m against it.

Obama Will Definitely Nominate Hagel for Secretary of Defense

No Comments

How do I know this, because in 1998, Chuck Hagel aggressively gay bashed James Hormel when he was nominated to be ambassador to Luxemberg:

The nation’s largest LGBT rights group on Thursday called “unacceptable” comments former Sen. Chuck Hagel made in 1998 opposing a Clinton administration nominee because he was “openly aggressively gay.”

The 14-year-old comments about Clinton’s nominee to be ambassador to Luxembourg, James Hormel, came to light Thursday as Hagel is a front-runner to be nominated by President Obama for defense secretary in his second term.

Human Rights Campaign spokesman Michael Cole-Schwartz also said, however, that “we do not know … how [Hagel’]s views have evolved over time” and that the group “look[s] forward to hearing from Senator Hagel on these issues should he be nominated.”

The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which works to support out LGBT presidential appointees, noted that times have changed since Hormel’s nomination.

This would not be a SecDef who will move aggressively on removing the last vestiges of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” from the military.

His nomination, absent a serious and sincere mea culpa, would be a finger in the eye of the LGBT community, which would give Obama the sort of “Sister Souljah moment” opportunity that he loves so much, which is why I think Hagel will be nominated by Obama.

DPRK Finally Gets a Launch Half Right

No Comments

North Korea’s satellite is actually in orbit, though it appears to be tumbling out of control:

After 14 years of trying, North Korea has finally joined the countries capable of launching a satellite into orbit. But the success was short-lived. The nation’s space program is also experiencing the bitterness of the failure to keep its spacecraft stable.

North Korea succeeded Dec. 11 on its six attempt to orbit what officials there call an Earth-observation satellite. The U.S. led a group of nations , including Russia and China, that warned North Korea not to proceed with the mission. China has since expressed “regret” over it.

The launch technology can also be used to support the country ‘s ballistic missile program .

A U.S. defense official suggests the satellite is tumbling in its polar orbit. Strategic Command, which tracks orbiting objects, referred questions to the Pentagon. A spokeswoman there said she would not comment on classified intelligence matters.

One observer who tracked the spacecraft with night-vision goggles said it was “flickering” and produced an intermittent trace on a time-exposure photograph, which could suggest tumbling.

What is significant here is not the ballistic missile capability that this shows, because this rocket science isn’t exactly ……… rocket science.

Yes, I know, it technically is rocket science, and from an engineering and technical perspective it is significant, but a ballistic missile aimed at the west coast would need to impart less than ½ the kinetic energy to the payload.

It’s been clear that this has been well within the Kim’s capabilities for years.

What is significant is now that any attempt to prevent testing related to ballistic missiles will now have to clearly show that it is not almost entirely related to weapons.

While there is support in the international community to prevent the development of explicitly military long range rocket capability, the idea that the United States, it’s NATO allies, Russia, China, Israel, etc. should be allowed to hold a hegemony on such a technology will be anathema to most other nations in the world.

This is particularly true because the only nation put at threat by this, though South Korea and Japan are clearly at risk from shorter ranged rockets, is the United States.

We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us

No Comments

Our Military is now objectively pro bombing children:

“It kind of opens our aperture,” said Army Lt. Col. Marion “Ced” Carrington, whose unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was assisting the Afghan police. “In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”

So targeting children, “Opens our aperture?”

So not only are you going to target children, you are going to be ecstatic about it.  It’s like the original Deathrace 2000 movie, the one with David Carradine, where points were awarded not for skill, but for the helplessness of the victim and the brutality of the killing.

Colonel Carrington, you had better hope that there is no God, and no afterlife, because if there is either, your eternity is not going to be pleasant.

This Might Explain the Problems We Have With General Officer Corps

No Comments

The Washington Post details the rock-star lifestyle of US General Officers (Generals and Admirals), and it goes a long way toward explaining some of the problems that exist with them.

Simply put, they have no connection to reality, and they have every incentive to delay their retirement well past the limits their usefulness:

Then-defense secretary Robert M. Gates stopped bagging his leaves when he moved into a small Washington military enclave in 2007. His next-door neighbor was Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, who had a chef, a personal valet and — not lost on Gates — troops to tend his property.

Gates may have been the civilian leader of the world’s largest military, but his position did not come with household staff. So, he often joked, he disposed of his leaves by blowing them onto the chairman’s lawn.

“I was often jealous because he had four enlisted people helping him all the time,” Gates said in response to a question after a speech Thursday. He wryly complained to his wife that “Mullen’s got guys over there who are fixing meals for him, and I’m shoving something into the microwave. And I’m his boss.”

Of the many facts that have come to light in the scandal involving former CIA director David H. Petraeus, among the most curious was that during his days as a four-star general, he was once escorted by 28 police motorcycles as he traveled from his Central Command headquarters in Tampa to socialite Jill Kelley’s mansion. Although most of his trips did not involve a presidential-size convoy, the scandal has prompted new scrutiny of the imperial trappings that come with a senior general’s lifestyle.

The commanders who lead the nation’s military services and those who oversee troops around the world enjoy an array of perquisites befitting a billionaire, including executive jets, palatial homes, drivers, security guards and aides to carry their bags, press their uniforms and track their schedules in 10-minute increments. Their food is prepared by gourmet chefs. If they want music with their dinner parties, their staff can summon a string quartet or a choir.

The elite regional commanders who preside over large swaths of the planet don’t have to settle for Gulfstream V jets. They each have a C-40, the military equivalent of a Boeing 737, some of which are configured with beds.

In a war zone, I could understand why a general might have someone to take care of ordinary day-to-day tasks, but for someone deployed to the wilds of Alexandria, Virginia, they can take out their own trash, and mow their own damn lawn.

The ratio of officers to enlisted men is not now 1:5.  For most of history, it was 1:10.  Additionally, we now have more general officers, with 1.5 million active duty military, than we did at the height of the 2nd world war when we had 12+ million men under arms.

The terms “top heavy” and “bloated” come to mind.

We’ve Always Been at War with Eastasia

No Comments

The Pentagon is claiming that Iranian aircraft fired on a US drone while in international airspace:

Iranian warplanes shot at an American military surveillance drone flying over the Persian Gulf near Iran last week, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday. They said that the aircraft, a Predator drone, was flying in international airspace and was not hit and that the episode had prompted a strong protest to the Iranian government.

 The shooting, which involved two Russian-made Su-25 jets known as Frogfoots, occurred on Nov. 1 and was the first known instance of Iranian warplanes firing on an American surveillance drone. George Little, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department’s weeklong silence about the episode was a result of restrictions on the discussion of classified surveillance missions. He answered questions about it during a Pentagon news conference on Thursday only after it had been reported by news organizations earlier in the day.

 Even so, the failure to disclose a hostile encounter with Iran’s military at a time of increased international tensions over the disputed Iranian nuclear program — and five days before the American presidential election — raises questions for the Obama administration. Had the Iranian attack been disclosed before Election Day, it is likely to have been viewed in a political context — interpreted either as sign of the administration’s weakness or, conversely, as an opportunity for President Obama to demonstrate leadership.

………

 “Our aircraft was never in Iranian airspace,” Mr. Little said. “It was always flying in international airspace.”

Yeah, right.