Category: Military

Operation Ridiculous Clusterf%$#

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Speaking of US military, intelligence, and foreign policy failures, it appears that our efforts to overthrow Assad are failing, in part because CIA’s and the Pentagon’s proxies are literally at war with each other:

Two Department of Defense officials told The Daily Beast that they are not eager to support the rebels in the city of Aleppo because they’re seen as being affiliated with al Qaeda in Syria, or Jabhat al Nusra. The CIA, which supports those rebel groups, rejects that claim, saying alliances of convenience in the face of a mounting Russian-led offensive have created marriages of battlefield necessity, not ideology.

“It is a strange thing that DoD hall chatter mimics Russian propaganda,” one U.S. official, who supports the intelligence community position, wryly noted to Pentagon claims that the opposition and Nusra are one in the same.

But even if the rebels were completely separated from Nusra, there would still be something of a strategic conflict with U.S. military goals. The rebels in Aleppo, these Pentagon officials note, are fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime; the American military effort, on the other hand, is primarily about defeating the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

………

The intelligence community, which backed opposition forces in Aleppo, believes ISIS cannot be defeated as long as Assad is in power. The terror group, they say, thrives in unstable territories. And only local forces—like the ones backed by the CIA—can mitigate that threat.

………

“The U.S. has two isolated programs that are not mutually supporting each other and are actually sometimes at odds with each other,” said Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

Following the lead of the House of Saud, and allowing the CIA to engage in its regime change fantasies are no way to run a foreign policy.

So Not Surprised

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It turns out that our attempt to create a viable Iraqi military has largely failed:

A 17-month U.S. effort to retrain and reunify Iraq’s regular army has failed to create a large number of effective Iraqi combat units or limit the power of sectarian militias, according to current and former U.S. military and civilian officials.

Concern about the shortcomings of the American attempt to strengthen the Iraqi military comes as Iraqi government forces and Shi’ite militias have launched an offensive to retake the city of Falluja from Islamic State. Aid groups fear the campaign could spark a humanitarian catastrophe, as an estimated 50,000 Sunni civilians remain trapped in the besieged town.

The continued weakness of regular Iraqi army units and reliance on Shi’ite militias, current and former U.S. military officials said, could impede Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s broader effort to defeat Islamic State and win the long-term support of Iraqi Sunnis. The sectarian divide between the majority Shi’ite and minority Sunni communities threatens to split the country for good.

………

Retired U.S. Lieutenant General Mick Bednarek, who commanded the U.S. military training effort in Iraq from 2013 to 2015, said the Iraqi army has not improved dramatically in the past eight months. He blamed a variety of problems, from a lack of Iraqis wanting to join the military to the resistance of some lower-level Iraqi officers to sending units to American training.

This is not a surprise.

Iraq was always a country loosely stitched together by the diktat of the new colonial rulers of the region following the First World War, and the invasion knocked Humpty Dumpty off of that wall, and we cannot put him back together again.

Even With a Slam Dunk, the Guantanamo Courts Collude with Prosecutors

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You would have to figure that if there were one case where the prosecutors at Guantanamo would have a conviction in the bag, it would be the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Well, it turns out that the prosecutors and the judge colluded to destroy evidence:

The judge overseeing the premiere military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay effectively conspired with the prosecution to destroy evidence relevant to defending the accused architect of the 9/11 attacks, according to a scathing court document.

Army Col James Pohl, who this week at Guantánamo is presiding over a resumption of pretrial hearings in the already troubled case, “in concert with the prosecution, manipulated secret proceedings and the use of secret orders”, the document alleges, preventing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s defense team from learning Pohl had permitted the Obama administration to destroy the evidence.

Worst Constitutional Law Professor, Ever!

………

The accusation comes in a 10 May defense filing that the military commissions have recently unsealed. It contains significant detail about an episode that Mohammed’s attorneys say has permanently tainted the most high-profile test of the US’s post-9/11 turn toward military justice for terrorism cases.

………

Mohammed’s attorneys argue that the secret maneuvering left them unable to challenge the destruction of evidence. They contend that the case ought to be scrapped entirely. Their brief quotes a famous 1932 supreme court case, Powell v Alabama, to argue that failing to provide the defense access to evidence “would be little short of judicial murder”.

“Whatever legitimate national security interests might purportedly justify the near-Star Chamber proceedings that have riven this case, there can be no articulable excuse for so clearly misleading Mr. Mohammed’s counsel and preventing them from seeking remedies to prevent the destruction of crucial evidence,” they continued.

………

But on 19 December 2013, Pohl ordered the US to “ensure the preservation of any overseas detention facilities still within the control of the United States” – a reference to the secret “black site” prisons where the CIA and its allies tortured Mohammed and his co-defendants.

According to the defense filing, six months after Pohl issued an evidence-preservation order at the defense’s behest and over the prosecution’s objections, the judge “authorized the government to destroy the evidence in question”. Pohl’s reversal of course was “the result of secret communications between the government and Judge Pohl, which he conducted without the knowledge of defense counsel”, the motion asserts.

That order, issued exclusively to the prosecution, carried with it a direction to provide the defense with a “redacted version”. But Pohl “did not actually instruct the prosecution to proffer any proposed redactions of the order until 18 months after granting the government permission to destroy the evidence, and over a year after it was apparently actually destroyed”, the defense team claims.

“[B]elatedly,” Mohammed’s attorneys say, the commission gave them a version of Pohl’s destruction order “by attaching it to another secret order,” and concluding, “without benefit of ever having examined the actual evidence, that the government’s proffer or a summary of a substitute for the original (now destroyed) evidence provided the defense with an adequate alternative to access to the evidence in question.”

Destroying the evidence in secret while permitting the defense to believe it had been preserved has “substantially gutted” the credibility of the military commission and “irreparably harmed” Mohammed’s ability to defend himself in a death-penalty case, the lawyers say. The episode “call[s] into question Judge Pohl’s impartiality”.

………

Karen Greenberg, the director of Fordham University Law School’s Center on National Security, said the allegation of collusion to destroy evidence could prove to be a tipping point for the military tribunals more broadly.

“This may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in underscoring the unviability of the military commissions,” Greenberg said.

“Remember, a main reason they couldn’t have this [trial] in federal court was that it would have been such a circus. And now you have a full-blown circus, with judicial and every other kind of misstepping.”

Gee, you think?

This has been a complete clusterf%$#, and it has been since it’s begun.

They wanted to create a system that would allow for no possibility of acquittal, and they wanted to be able to claim that it was fair.

They got neither.

BTW, Colonel Pohl should be removed from the case, and probably fired from the military, and if he has a civilian law license, he should be disbarred.

This makes a mockery to the very idea of justice and due process.

That’s Gotta Be Driving the Turks Crazy

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Green Berets assisting the Kurds in Syria are wearing Kurdish militia insignia on their uniforms:

Photos have emerged of American special operations troops in Syria wearing uniform insignia affiliated with a Kurdish rebel group known as the YPG, whose connection to Turkish terrorists could could fuel tension between the U.S. and a key ally in the Islamic State fight.

The images were taken in a village about 40 miles north of the Islamic State group’s self-declared capital of Raqqa, which is the target of a newly announced offensive being led by a disparate group of Kurdish and Arab fighters, and backed by American military advisers and air support. They highlight the complicated network of alliances the U.S. is trying to forge in Syria, and the ethnic and sectarian tensions that could tear apart this fragile coalition.

Speaking Thursday, a top Pentagon official said it’s fairly common for Green Berets and other operators to wear allies’ patches.

This has got to be putting some kinks in Erdogan’s mustache.

PICTURES: Saab rolls out first Gripen E fighter

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Saab has rolled out its first Gripen NG, which structurally is pretty much a new plane.

As compared to the travails of the F-22, where upgrades and modernization have been expensive and difficult, and the F-35, which is late, expensive, under performing, and unreliable.

By comparison, all the major systems for the new Gripen have flown, the first aircraft is a production unit, and it is expected to start flight testing this year:

Saab is targeting the on-schedule delivery of its new Gripen E fighter to the Swedish and Brazilian air forces late this decade, as it steps up export campaigns involving both the advanced model and its earlier C/D-model jet.

 The first of three Swedish test aircraft to be involved in the project was unveiled at the manufacturer’s Linköping facility on 18 May, in front of an international audience of current and prospective Gripen users.

 Lead aircraft 39-8 will be handed over to Saab’s flight test department “this summer”, and should make its flight debut at the end of the year, the company says. It will be used initially to verify the general systems, airframe and aerodynamics of the evolved design, which – while visually resembling earlier iterations – is entirely new.

 Powered by a GE Aviation F414 turbofan engine capable of generating 22,000lb (98kN) of thrust, the Gripen E has an empty weight of 8,000kg (17,600lb) and a maximum take-off weight of 16.5t. The latter represents a 2.5t increase over the C/D. At 15.2m (49.8ft), it is also 30cm longer than its predecessor, while its wingspan has increased by 20cm, to 8.6m. With 40% more internal fuel, the new model has increased range, payload and endurance, and features an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, other updated avionics and new electronic warfare equipment.

 Saab chief executive Håkan Buskhe reveals the cost of developing the Gripen E and producing its three Swedish test aircraft will be less than $2 billion.

This is chump change by the standards of modern fighter development.

………

 Stressing that aircraft 39-8 is not a prototype, Ydreskog says: “Assembly of the first test aircraft – with 60,000, mostly new parts – was shorter than number 204 for the C/D.” The programme’s other test units are in different stages of structural assembly and only minor adjustments are expected as the shift to series production occurs. “There is some optimisation to do – we can reduce some weight,” he notes.

 But Saab believes one of the biggest advances with the Gripen E comes through its use of an all-new integrated modular avionics system, which splits flight-critical and tactical management software. It says the latter’s software, hardware and algorithms can be rapidly changed – like apps on a smartphone – to keep pace with evolved operational requirements or technological advances in computing over the life of the type’s use.

(emphasis mine)

The updated software has been in development for far less time than the (still not up to snuff) avionics package for the F-35 JSF, and it will be trivial for countries using the aircraft.

The reason is that critical functions are segregated from one another, which, as any programmer can tell you, simply works better than tightly integrated all in one software as used in the JSF, even after billions of dollars have been spent.

Of course, for Lockheed Martin, their hairball of a software platform is not a bug, it’s a feature, because it allows charge tolls on users who want to make upgrades.

As Aviation Week notes:

………

Gripen E is scaled up from the early Gripen C/D with 40% additional fuel capacity, more thrust from its General Electric F414 engine and more weapon stations. Internally the aircraft has been given a new sensor suite, with active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and infrared search and track (IRST).

Key to the aircraft is a federated software system that separates critical flight control systems from the tactical systems. Saab claims this will make the Gripen E’s avionics and mission systems more easily and quickly upgradable. Just 10% of the aircraft’s system code will be devoted to flight-critical systems; the remaining 90% will be mission-system related. Saab officials say tactical upgrades could be tested and introduced in weeks rather than months.

(emphasis mine)

The direct operating cost, as well as the fly away cost, of the Gripen looks to be less than that of its competitors.

Compared to its competitors, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale, and the Lockheed-Martin Lightning II, this aircraft should better suit the needs of most countries out there, but Sweden lacks the connections behind the other platforms, so it looks likely that while it will be a market success, it will be a only a modest success.

So Does Blowing Up Innocent Civilians, You Over Pampered Sack of Sh%$

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David Petraeus makes the point that anti-Muslim bigotry helps terrorists.

While it is an obvious point coached as deep meaning, which is kind of what Petraeus does, it misses the obvious point, which is that our mindless drone war, of which Petraeus was its most aggressive advocate, was an even more effective recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and Daesh.

We have been reigning down death from the skies on wedding parties, children, and first responders (“double tap” strikes), and this creates people who want revenge on the west in general and the US in particular.

There is a special place for you in hell.

Not a Surprise

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The Military Times conducted a survey which showed that members of the military support Trump by a large margin:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Spokane, Wash., on May 7, 2016.(Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP)

In a new survey of American military personnel, Donald Trump emerged as active-duty service members’ preference to become the next U.S. president, topping Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin. However, in the latest Military Times election survey, more than one in five troops said they’d rather not vote in November if they have to choose between just those two candidates.

But given only those choices, 21 percent of the service members surveyed said they would abstain from voting.More than 54 percent of the 951 troops Military Times surveyed said they would vote for Trump, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, over Clinton, the Democratic front-runner. Only about 25 percent said they would vote for Clinton in that matchup.

This is not surprising:

  • The military trends conservative.
  • Clinton is more likely to squander blood and treasure in an unnecessary war than anyone this side of Richard Bruce Cheney.

It’s unlikely that the military vote will be decisive, but I gotta figure that they are sick and tired of useless and meaningless losing wars.

    Guys Like this Need to Sell Cosmetics for a Living

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    Admiran (Ret) William McRaven, former head of JSOC, is ranting incoherently about the fact that civilian authority actually exerts authority over the military:

    A long-percolating feud between Navy brass and the Senate has erupted into open conflict, with the retired admiral who oversaw the daring 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden publicly accusing lawmakers of harboring deep disrespect for military leaders.

    In an unusually blunt column published Sunday in the Tampa Tribune, William H. McRaven, a retired four-star admiral, former Navy SEAL and former commander of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, blasted members of Congress for a “disturbing trend in how politicians abuse and denigrate military leadership, particularly the officer corps, to advance their political agendas.”

    Although McRaven did not single out lawmakers by name, he made clear that he was angry at the Senate for its treatment of Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey, the commander in charge of the Navy’s elite SEAL teams and other commando units. Losey, who formerly served under McRaven, was denied promotion last month and is being forced to retire after several senators from both parties pressured the Navy to hold him accountable for retaliating against multiple whistleblowers.

    Calling Losey’s fate a “miscarriage of justice,” McRaven called him “without a doubt one of the finest officers with whom I have ever served. Over the past 15 years no officer I know in the SEAL Teams has given more to this country than Brian.”

    Speaking on the Senate floor April 6, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey was “an honored naval officer” but was “a serial retaliator” who deserved to be denied a promotion. (United States Senate)

    ………

    McRaven’s description of Losey as an innocent victim is at odds with the findings of the Defense Department’s inspector general, which concluded that he had repeatedly violated whistleblower-protection laws.

    The agency investigated Losey five times after subordinates complained that he had wrongly fired, demoted or punished them during a vengeful but fruitless hunt for a person who had anonymously reported him for a minor travel-policy infraction. After conducting separate investigations that involved more than 100 witnesses and 300,000 pages of emails, the inspector general upheld complaints from three of the five staffers and recommended that the Navy take action against him.

    The Navy, however, dismissed the findings that Losey had violated the law and was poised to promote him last fall to become a two-star admiral until details of the case were revealed publicly for the first time in October by The Washington Post. That prompted several senators to object to the Navy’s plans. They turned up the pressure with a variety of legislative tactics until Navy Secretary Ray Mabus relented in March and announced that Losey’s promotion had been nixed. 

    The travesty here is not Congress holding a corrupt general accountable.  It is the US Navy refusing to hold a corrupt general accountable.

    These attitudes pervade the culture of the senior officer corps(e) in the US military. 

    It is an entitled attitude that breeds corruption and incompetence.

    Why Listening to your Generals is Overrated

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    In Europe the US general in charge of NATO seems hell bent on triggering a confrontation with Russia, while in the Asia-Pacific, an admiral is determined to lobby for similar dick swinging with regard to the Chinese.

    I would remind Barack Obama that it was this sort of sh%$ that had Harry S Truman making his well justified decision to fire Douglas MacArthur:

    The U.S. military’s top commander in the Pacific is arguing behind closed doors for a more confrontational approach to counter and reverse China’s strategic gains in the South China Sea, appeals that have met resistance from the White House at nearly every turn.

    Adm. Harry Harris is proposing a muscular U.S. response to China’s island-building that may include launching aircraft and conducting military operations within 12 miles of these man-made islands, as part of an effort to stop what he has called the “Great Wall of Sand” before it extends within 140 miles from the Philippines’ capital, sources say.

    Harris and his U.S. Pacific Command have been waging a persistent campaign in public and in private over the past several months to raise the profile of China’s land grab, accusing China outright in February of militarizing the South China Sea.

    ………

    Harris and PACOM officials have been lobbying the National Security Council, Capitol Hill and Pentagon leaders to send a clear message that they won’t tolerate continued bullying of neighbors. Part of the approach includes more aggressive, frequent and close patrols of China’s artificial islands, Navy Times has learned.

    These guys want to force humiliating back-down from the Chinese, which isn’t going to happen.

    This is John Foster Dulles style brinksmanship, and in addition to being batsh%$ insane, it is not something that should be decided by the uniformed military.

    How about reasserting civilian control of the military, Mr. Obama?

    It is Called Ticket Punching

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    With about 5000 US troops in Iraq, there are 21 generals leading the troops there.

    Typically, a full bird colonel would command a unit with 5000 soldiers, but there are 21 Generals:

    In the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the U.S. military is notably short on soldiers, but apparently not on generals.

    There are at least 12 U.S. generals in Iraq, a stunningly high number for a war that, if you believe the White House talking points, doesn’t involve American troops in combat. And that number is, if anything, a conservative estimate, not taking into account the flag officers running the U.S. air war, the admirals helping wage the war from the sea, or their superiors back at the Pentagon.

    At U.S. headquarters inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, even majors and colonels frequently find themselves saluting superiors at a pace that outranks the Pentagon and certainly any normal military installation. With about 5,000 troops deployed to Iraq and Syria ISIS war, that means there’s a general for every 416 troops, give or take. To compare, there are some captains in the U.S. Army in charge of that many people.

    Moreover, many of those generals come with staffs and bureaucracy that some argue slows decision-making against an agile terror group.

    The Obama administration has frequently argued that the U.S. maintains a so-called light footprint in Iraq to reassure the American public that its military is not back in Iraq. Indeed, at times, the United States has not acknowledged where it has deployed troops until one of them died.

    There are this many generals in Iraq because of the career needs of the general officer corps, not out of military need.

    Getting a combat posting, even a useless one, paves the way to further promotions.

    We saw something similar in the cruise missile attacks against Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, when the navy held off launching missiles for hours, so that more ships could get into position so that their captains could get it into their service records.

    The missiles missed bin Laden by minutes as a result.

    Between the military-industrial complex revolving door and up or out, our military is seriously, and deeply broken.

    But He Got Us Out of Iraq!

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    Ground troops are back fighting in Iraq:

    The Islamic State group is trying to retake control of the oil fields it lost two years ago in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan by launching rockets at Kurdish and Iraqi soldiers. In an attempt to earn back the massive amount of cash it used to fund its international terrorism in 2014, the group has focused its resources on attacking Makhmur, a city just 75 miles miles from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. So far, the group, also known as ISIS, has succeeded in outgunning the Iraqi forces in the city, but a new contingent of American Marines might change the outcome on the ground.

    “Several weeks ago, thousands of Iraqi troops began occupying a tactical assembly area in Makhmur. This is part of the force generation associated with the liberation of Mosul,” Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, said in a press briefing this week. Mosul is the de facto ISIS headquarters in Iraq. “These Iraqi forces, along with their coalition advisers, require force protection,” Warren said. “So we constructed a small fire base to do just that.”

    The U.S. Marines in Iraq are on the front line and have been tasked with protecting Iraqi units in Makhmur — a scenario President Barack Obama wanted to avoid as long as possible during his time in office.

    In a statement before meeting with congressional leaders on Sept. 3, 2013, Obama talked about his plan to combat ISIS and said: “The key point that I want to emphasize to the American people: The military plan that has been developed by our Joint Chiefs — and that I believe is appropriate — is proportional. It is limited. It does not involve boots on the ground. This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan.”

    There are now more than 3,200 U.S. personnel in Iraq. Many have been tasked with training Iraqi soldiers, but others, such as the new contingent of Marines, are in active battles or are leading special operations to rescue hostages. Two American soldiers have died in Iraq since the U.S. deployed soldiers last year.

    Hope and change my ass.

    This is a Big F%$# You to Turkey

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    Russia may be reducing its military presence in Syria, but they have started shipping weapons to the Kurds.

    That sound you hear is the sound of Turkish heads exploding:

    Russia delivered the first of five planned shipments of anti-aircraft weapons to Kurdish troops in northern Iraq. According to Russian experts, Moscow officially revealed this fact for the first time with the intention to change its Middle East policy and emphasize the importance of the Kurds in the region.

    In Iraq arrived first shipment of Russian weapons to Kurdish volunteer movement “Peshmerga”, who fight against the “Islamic state” terrorist organization in the region. Senior officials of the Russian Foreign Ministry handed over anti-aircraft weapons ZU-23-2 (23 mm caliber) to the forces of resistance.

    „Shipment of weapons arrived on March 14. It is intended for Peshmerga in Iraqi Kurdistan. At the handover of weapons was held with the presense of Ambassador and Consul General of Russia in Iraq, and Deputy Chief of Staff of “Peshmerga”, RIA Novosti quoted Artjomova Grigorjan, attaché of the Russian general consulate in the Iraqi city of Erbil.

    According to him, the parties discuss the further delivery of the weapons. “After the handover of weapons Russian ambassador said that this is not the last delivery. He stressed that Russia hopes “Peshmerga” and the Iraqi armed forces will use this weapon to win against “Islamic state”, said the Russian attaché.

    Do not confuse the ZU-23-2 with the ZSU23-4 radar guided self-propelled antiaircraft system.

    The ZU is optically guided towed system.

    In a modern battlefield, its antiaircraft capabilities are limited, but it is relative mobile and capable in a surface to surface mode.

    More importantly, it implies that the Russians might be willing to send more capable surface to air systems, such as the ZSU, or surplus SA-6 or SA-8 systems, which they could  use against Turkish air strikes.

    Let the shrieks or outrage from Ankara begin.

    Gee, You Think?

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    The director of the F-35 (aka the Joint Strike Fighter) program, General Christopher Bogden, has admitted that the “Jointness” part of the program was a mistake:

    Perhaps the only thing U.S. military leaders know about their next fighter jet is this: they want the program to go better than the F-35’s did.

    The sixth-generation fighter effort is still in its infancy; the aircraft it produces may not fly for decades. The Pentagon hasn’t even decided whether to build separate planes for the Navy and Air Force. But the services’ leaders are already cooperating to figure out how the futuristic fighter will fit into the battlefield of the future — and how they can avoid another tactical aircraft program that winds up so late, over budget, and short of its goals.

    Ask the F-35 program’s current director for advice, and you’ll get this gentle warning: joint programs are hard.

    “I’m not saying they’re bad. I’m not saying they’re good. I’m just saying they’re hard,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said Thursday. “You ought to think really hard about what you really need out of the sixth-generation fighter and how much overlap is there between what the Navy and the Air Force really need.”

    When the F-35 was conceived in the 1990s, the goal was to buy a common plane for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and even America’s allies. The Air Force version would fly from traditional runways, the Navy version would operate from aircraft carriers, and the Marine version would be built to take off from short runways and land vertically. The goal was to have all three have 70 percent of their parts in common, which was meant to save billions of dollars in development and logistics costs.

    But engineering changes have produced three variants that have only 20 percent of their parts in common, Bogdan said at a conference sponsored by McAleese and Associates and Credit Suisse.

    ………

    “We will have some different requirements for what we need based on the different things we are expected to provide for the joint force,” Lt. Gen. James “Mike” Holmes, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and requirements, told reporters last month. “We will use common technologies and maybe some common things, but at this point we think it will be a different enough mission that it won’t be the same airplane.”

    The only joint US Navy/US Air Force fighter that ever achieved a modicum of defense was the F-4 Phantom, and that was developed exclusively for naval use.

    Bogden also ignores the elephant in the room, which is that the jointness that most seriously compromised the program has been the jointness with the US Marine Corps.

    The STOVL version has added about 2000 lbs to the weight of just the engine, led to poor rear visibility from the cockpit, made the wings smaller than they should have been for either the Air Force of Naval variants to save weight, and the volume occupied by the lift fan restricted the placement and the utility of the inner weapons bays.

    This is not the only reason that the JSF is shaping up as a clusterf%$#, but it is a lot of the problem.

    Another Strike Against the F-35

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    Rather unsurprisingly, it is the logistics and prognostics software, ALIS.

    It has not been working right in tests, and even when it does, it means that there is effectively an off switch for any foreign buyer’s aircraft located in the United States.

    Now we learn that they are intending to go live with the system before testing its vulnerability to hackers: (Paid subscription required)

    The F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) will deploy its next major software release—2.0.2—in July, but concerns remain about performance and security. A report by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) released in January suggests delayed ALIS software may push back U.S. Air Force initial operational capability (IOC) and that the network’s cybersecurity has become a key concern.

    Lockheed Martin’s ALIS program manager, Jeff Streznetcky, says a U.S. Marine Corps exercise at Twentynine Palms, California, in December and an ongoing Air Force test program at Mountain Home, Idaho, offer more representative indications of ALIS’s readiness than the report.

    “By all accounts, ALIS performed exceptionally well” at Twentynine Palms, he says, “and the reports I’m getting out of Mountain Home are similar. ALIS is doing its job supporting the warfighter and ultimately turning jets.”

    ………

    Leaked National Security Agency briefing documents confirm China obtained F-35 engine schematics and radar designs after compromising program systems in the mid-2000s. Less attention has been focused on the kind of information routinely moving through ALIS, which may represent the program’s biggest threat surface.

    “The Chinese see ALIS as a fantastic opportunity to enhance and improve their own fighter-aircraft capabilities,” says Bill Hagestad, a retired Marine Corps colonel and expert on Chinese cyber competencies. “But ALIS data would also be of considerable operational and strategic value to the Chinese if they were able to take a look at the disposition and laydown of deployed combat aircraft.”

    According to a 2015 report by cybersecurity vendor FireEye, it takes 205 days on average for network breaches to be detected. Even if all data are encrypted, content could be inferred through analysis of network traffic patterns. Attackers can remain undetected longer if they are leveraging previously unknown vulnerabilities.

    ALIS’s security is not just dependent on Lockheed’s own software and network defenses deployed on the different national and corporate systems ALIS data transits. The system incorporates a number of off-the-shelf component programs to handle logistics management and other functions: This has cut development timescales and lowered costs, but any vulnerabilities in those products become ALIS vulnerabilities.

    ………

    A comprehensive, ongoing cybersecurity testing regime would appear to be a necessity. Yet the DOT&E report states: “The program currently does not plan to conduct cybersecurity penetration testing during the development of this ALIS release [2.0.2], or any future developmental releases, but will instead rely on previous, albeit limited, cybersecurity test results.”

    This has not gone over well with cybersecurity experts. “Suggesting that this should be deployed before it’s properly tested and then tested after it’s deployed is backward security,” says Adriel Desautels, founder of penetration-testing specialist Netragard. “I don’t have a word strong enough to describe the level of absurdity involved with that. You can’t possibly deploy something that’s this sensitive and just have blind faith that you won’t get hacked.

    Of course, Lockheed-Martin and the Pentagon maintain that they will deal with any potential vulnerabilities as soon as they get a round to it.

    They want to get the aircraft into the field and have a large captive market before people realize that the aircraft is an unaffordable dog.

    Ship, then fix.

    As any computer gamer knows, there is a a whole world of grief that comes from this arrangement.

    Eric Arthur Blair Knows the Term for This

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    Classification stupidity

    The prosecutor for the military commission at Guantánamo is retroactively classifying pubic hearings:

    The war court prosecutor is arguing that public disclosure of a transcript of a public hearing held at Guantánamo last year could endanger national security in response to a legal motion brought by 17 news organizations protesting pick-and-choose secrecy in the Sept. 11 pretrial hearings.

    Army Brig. Gen Mark Martins makes the argument in a filing obtained by The Miami Herald that was still being reviewed for sensitive information on Thursday and not publicly released. At issue is the Pentagon’s decision to black out large portions of a 379-page transcript of an Oct. 30 hearing that included testimony from two soldiers who work at Guantánamo’s most clandestine prison, called Camp 7.

    “That this information was uttered in a public session or is reported in news coverage does not render the information unprotected or vitiate the damage further disclosures would beget,” prosecutors wrote Jan. 29 in the 29-page filing in the war court case against Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

    In defending the decision to censor what was public information, the prosecutors included a less-redacted transcript that showed previously blacked out sentences and in the same filing sealed up a declaration from the Guantánamo prison commander explaining what is at risk.

    ………

    Reporters, Sept. 11 victim family members and other members of the public heard the testimony on Oct. 30 through a 40-second audio delay designed to let the judge or a court security officer mute the sound if anyone spilled national security secrets. No one ever pushed the button. But when the transcript came out weeks later, portions that the Miami Herald had reported in a routine Twitter stream were gone.

    Now, a comparison of the two different censored transcripts of the same hearing offer a study in over-classification. Nearly every redaction is refined in the updated version.

    The term to describe this sh%$ is “Orwellian”.

    No Butts About It

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    I am not referring to the tuchas. I am referring to the archery practice, which for many centuries was mandatory for English yeomen.

    And now an English vicar has invoked this ancient law:

    A vicar has revived an ancient law to call members of her parish together for archery practice.

     The Reverend Mary Edwards, of Collingbourne Ducis, near Marlborough, called residents to the village recreation ground on Friday.

     Residents were rewarded for complying with the law with a bar, a barbecue and live music.

     Church warden Mike Cox said: “It seems she’s still entitled to do that.”

     “I’ve been checking on the web and most archery experts and clergy seem to agree she is,” Mr Cox added.

     ………

     “We are celebrating the building of a new loo [bathroom] in the church. After all these years we have at long last brought running water to the church.”

    It’s a wonderful story, but it appears that their understanding of the law is not accurate:

    ……… And, in fact, it appears that the archery requirement was repealed quite a while ago.

    While I would have preferred to fly to England and go rummaging through the Parliamentary Archives to confirm this personally, I had a deadline to meet, plus I am not especially welcome there anymore because of what I see as a simple misunderstanding as to whether their reading rooms are clothing-optional. So I have relied on the Internet, which is less authoritative but also less judgmental.

    It is clear that there were laws requiring archery practice dating back to at least the 13th century. The motive was to make sure England had enough men trained to use the longbow, which for centuries was a crucial weapon for the English. (The most famous example is Agincourt, a battle that Henry V won in 1415 and is still going on about.)

    The training requirement was usually combined with prohibitions on other kinds of games and sports so that people would focus on archery instead of, for example, “tennis, football, [quoits], dice” and other “games inappropriate.” The point was not so much to condemn games as to make sure they did not get in the way of longbow training. In other words, they saw nothing morally wrong with tennis, it’s just that it is hard to kill a French knight with a tennis ball, no matter how good your serve is.

    In 1511 the requirement was expanded by “An Act concerning Shooting in Long Bows,” even though by then the importance of the bow was declining. This law provided that “All sorts of men under the age of 40 Years shall have bows and arrows” and practice using them. The playing of games continued, however, and in 1541 the law was expanded yet again by “An Act for the Maintenance of Artillery, and debarring unlawful Games,” the preamble to which declares that said games were believed to be the “Cause of the Decay of Archery” skills in England (There was another very important cause by then, namely guns–or, more specifically, bullets–but games always seem to get blamed for social problems.)

    The archery requirement was extended to all men under age 60, and the list of banned games was expanded. As before, though, these restrictions did not apply to the aristocracy. They tended to become knights, not archers, plus they had the God-given right to play games if they liked. According to them, that is, not God.

    At least some of this was still on the books well into the 19th century, but was probably repealed during the reign of Queen Victoria. In 1845, “An Act to Amend the Law concerning Games and Wagers” repealed any part of King Henry’s 1541 law making any “Game of Skill” unlawful or “which enacts any penalty for lacking bows or arrows … or which regulates the making, selling or using of bows and arrows.” If any of the older stuff survived, it was most likely repealed by more recent acts intended to get some of the ancient stuff off the books.

    Seeing as how the good vicar did not threaten any sanctions against those who declined to practice archery, I won’t spoil her fun, but it appears that she does not have the law on her side.

    H/t Jill Junkala on Facebook.

    Joseph Heller is Spinning in His Grave

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    Admiral Ted “Twig” Branch is the head of Naval Intelligence, but for the past 2 years, while at this position, his clearance has been suspended, and so he cannot read, review, or discuss classified material:

    For more than two years, the Navy’s intelligence chief has been stuck with a major handicap: He’s not allowed to know any secrets.

     Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch has been barred from reading, seeing or hearing classified information since November 2013, when the Navy learned from the Justice Department that his name had surfaced in a giant corruption investigation involving a foreign defense contractor and scores of Navy personnel.

     Worried that Branch was on the verge of being indicted, Navy leaders suspended his access to classified materials. They did the same to one of his deputies, Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations.

     More than 800 days later, neither Branch nor Loveless has been charged. But neither has been cleared, either. Their access to classified information remains blocked.

     Although the Navy transferred Loveless to a slightly less sensitive post, it kept Branch in charge of its intelligence division. That has resulted in an awkward arrangement, akin to sending a warship into battle with its skipper stuck onshore.

     Branch can’t meet with other senior U.S. intelligence leaders to discuss sensitive operations, or hear updates from his staff about secret missions or projects. It can be a chore just to set foot in colleagues’ offices; in keeping with regulations, they must conduct a sweep beforehand to make sure any classified documents are locked up.

    What the f%$# is wrong with the military?

    The guy is forbidden by to do his job, and as opposed to doing the sane thing, and transfer him to a new post where he can do his job, you cripple a crucial department.

    The idea that anyone in the Pentagon would allow this to happen for more than 2½ years is an indication that the bureaucracy and the general officer corps have become a dysfunctional carrerist dystopia.

    Smedley Butler was right.  It’s a racket.

    F%$# Me. Now I Have to Defend Sarah Palin

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    I understand that Track Palin, Sarah’s kid, is alleged to have beaten and brandished a firearm at his (hopefully former) girlfriend.

    I also heard Sarah Palin blaming Barack Obama, because Track was in Iraq, and has PTSD.

    I’m inclined call bullsh%$ on former ½ Governor Palin, because the best evidence is that Track Palin has always been a been prone to violent outbursts.

    That being said, articles like this one that claims that Track could not have PTSD because he never saw combat, are crap:

    ………

    The head of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Rick Rieckhoff responded to Palin’s statement, saying she shouldn’t “politicize” the issue of PTSD and hoped it “doesn’t become a portable chew toy in a political campaign.”

    In addition, Track Palin’s public records indicate that not only did he only serve one year in Iraq, which was under the George W. Bush administration, he also didn’t even see one moment of combat. An anonymous fellow solider also spoke about the issue, debunking Palin’s earlier claims. “Speaking as a combat vet who literally slept in the same barracks as Track Palin, his mother is wrong and her son is not a victim.”

    Let’s be clear here: This is NOT how PTSD works.

    There are doctors, and nurses, and MPs, and supply officers who never saw a shot fired in anger who have PTSD.

    Not being shot at, or shooting someone, does NOT rule out PTSD.

    Honestly, I think that the PTSD explanation is likely Palin alibiing (again), but painting with that broad a brush maligns a lot of people who have a very real condition, and need treatment. 

    A Little Justice ……… Not Enough, but a Little Justice

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    The Pentagon is considering retroactively demoting David Petraeus for his mishandling of classified data and lying to investigators:

    The defense secretary is looking to clamp down on misbehaving generals. Pentagon insiders say Petraeus could be the next general to face the consequences.

    The Pentagon is considering retroactively demoting retired Gen. David Petraeus after he admitted to giving classified information to his biographer and mistress while he was still in uniform, three people with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Beast.

    The decision now rests with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who is said to be willing to consider overruling an earlier recommendation by the Army that Petraeus not have his rank reduced. Such a demotion could cost the storied general hundreds of thousands of dollars—and deal an additional blow to his once-pristine reputation.

    “The secretary is considering going in a different direction” from the Army, a defense official told The Daily Beast, because he wants to be consistent in his treatment of senior officers who engage in misconduct and to send a message that even men of Petraeus’s fame and esteemed reputation are not immune to punishment.

    Pentagon spokesperson Peter Cook told The Daily Beast that Carter had requested the information ex-Army Secretary John McHugh had when he made his recommendation on the matter, before reaching a final decision. McHugh had recommended taking no action against Petraeus.

    “The Department of the Army is still in the process of providing the secretary with information relevant to former‎ Secretary McHugh’s recommendation,” Cook told The Daily Beast. “Once the secretary‎ has an opportunity to consider this information, he will make his decision about next steps, if any, in this matter.”

    ………

    Reducing Petraeus’s rank, most likely to lieutenant general, could mean he’d have to pay back the difference in pension payments and other benefits that he received as a retired four-star general. That would amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars over his retirement. According to Pentagon figures, a four-star general with roughly the same years of experience as Petraeus was entitled to receive a yearly pension of nearly $220,000. A three-star officer would receive about $170,000.

    Petraeus didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    But the financial pain to Petraeus isn’t likely to be severe. He has confided to friends and acquaintances that he’s making a hefty sum from his job at a private equity firm and through speaking fees.

    The demotion in rank would be a bigger, lasting blow, and take from Petraeus the rare achievement he’d set his eyes on many years ago.

    This guy is getting a 6 figure pension, and what is likely a 7 figure gig at a private equity firm, and the most that can be done is to hurt his feelings.

    He should be in jail, but absent that, dropping a star, or better dropping more than one stars, is quite literally the least that they can do.

    Politics in Sweden is Odd

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    The newly elected liberal coalition in Sweden is looking at reinstating military conscription, reversing a decision by the center-right government in 2010 to abolish the practice:

    Sweden’s former centre-right government scrapped compulsory military service in 2010, but the current Social Democrat-Green coalition has said it is considering reintroducing the concept.

    And a new survey carried out by major pollsters Ipsos on behalf of the Dagens Nyheter newspaper suggested on Monday that 72 percent of Swedes would throw their support behind conscription.

    Only 16 percent of respondents said they believed it was a bad idea.

    People are also making the argument that this could provide staffing for non military needs:

    ………

    The foreign minister told a meeting of senior politicians and military chiefs, attending the annual Sälen Society and Defense conference, that the government needs to examine all viable options to resolve present and future manpower needs and recruitment challenges faced by the Swedish armed forces.

    Wallström said that a reconstructed national service model could bolster the military’s capacity to not only conduct core defense tasks, but would also deliver military support to assist civilian agencies dealing with emergencies such as natural disasters, search-and-rescue missions and environmental clean-up.

    This is not something that I would expect from a, “Social Democrat-Green coalition,” though I approve.

    I think that a draftee army is likely to be more receptive to civilian control, and less likely to go along with a coup.